Giadzy - Shop now
Your audiobook is waiting!
Enjoy a free trial on us
$0.00
  • One credit a month to pick any title from our entire premium selection to keep (you’ll use your first credit now).
  • Unlimited listening on select audiobooks, Audible Originals, and podcasts.
  • You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
  • $14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel online anytime.
Learn more about membership
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
List Price: $38.00
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible’s Conditions Of Use. and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company

A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Joan Mellen (Author), Joyce Bean (Narrator), Brilliance Audio (Publisher)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 186 ratings
See all formats and editions

Working with thousands of previously unreleased documents and drawing on more than one thousand interviews, with many witnesses speaking out for the first time, Joan Mellen revisits the investigation of New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, the only public official to have indicted, in 1969, a suspect in President John F. Kennedy's murder.

Garrison began by exposing the contradictions in the Warren Report, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was an unstable pro-Castro Marxist who acted alone in killing Kennedy. A Farewell to Justice reveals that Oswald, no Marxist, was in fact working with both the FBI and the CIA, as well as with US Customs, and that the attempts to sabotage Garrison's investigation reached the highest levels of the US government. Garrison's suspects included CIA-sponsored soldiers of fortune enlisted in assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, an anti-Castro Cuban asset, and a young runner for the conspirators, interviewed here for the first time by the author.

Building upon Garrison's effort, Mellen uncovers decisive new evidence and clearly establishes the intelligence agencies' roles in both a president's assassination and its cover-up. In this revised edition, to be published in time for the fiftieth anniversary of the president's assassination, the author reveals new sources and recently uncovered documents confirming in greater detail just how involved the CIA was in the events of November 22, 1963. More than one hundred new pages add critical evidence and information into one of the most significant events in human history.

Previous slide of product details
  1. Listening Length
    23 hours and 11 minutes
  2. Author
    Joan Mellen
  3. Narrator
    Joyce Bean
  4. Audible release date
    June 5, 2017
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Brilliance Audio
  7. ASIN
    B071FV8QHB
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
Next slide of product details

Read & Listen

Switch between reading the Kindle book & listening to the Audible audiobook with Whispersync for Voice.
$0.99/month for the first 3 months
For a limited time, save 90% on Audible. Get this deal

Product details

Listening Length 23 hours and 11 minutes
Author Joan Mellen
Narrator Joyce Bean
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date June 05, 2017
Publisher Brilliance Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B071FV8QHB
Best Sellers Rank #130,274 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#112 in Con Artists, Hoaxes & Deceptions True Crime
#213 in Media Studies (Audible Books & Originals)
#400 in Hoaxes & Deceptions

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
186 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Customers say

Customers find the book provides well-researched and detailed information about the JFK assassination. They find it easy to read and consider it essential reading for anyone interested in the history. However, some readers feel the pacing is inconsistent and difficult to follow. There are mixed opinions on the writing quality - some find it brilliant and insightful, while others describe it as poorly written and unorganized.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more
Information qualityReadabilityWriting qualityPacing
27 customers mention "Information quality"27 positive0 negative

Customers find the book provides in-depth information about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. They appreciate the well-researched and detailed content, including sources and documentation. The book is carefully referenced and provides an analysis of the evidence proving that a conspiracy, not Oswald, assassinated the president. Readers find the writing compelling and essential for anyone interested in the subject.

"...More fresh evidence regarding 11/22/63 has become available these past years than was available to the Warren Commission, Jim Garrison or the House..." Read more

"...The notes amount to about a third of the actual text and they are rich in detail...." Read more

"...The thread there on this book is lively and informative. Ms. Mellen put many years of work into this book- it's well worth reading...." Read more

"...No longer. Joan Mellen has written the best-documented, and most scholarly work about the Garrison investigation to date, and it is hard to..." Read more

19 customers mention "Readability"19 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They say it's essential reading for anyone interested in the JFK assassination. The story of Jim Garrison is described as brilliant, eccentric, and courageous. Readers mention that the book captivates their attention and is worth reading, but be prepared to put in a lot of work.

"...Mellen's passion, brilliance, understanding, writing talent and just-plain-sleuthing-genius has resulted in a book which will change history...." Read more

"...Ms. Mellen put many years of work into this book- it's well worth reading. Even better, check out Deep Politics Forum...." Read more

"...A pretty good book to read which helps explain and verify the facts of A Farewell To Justice... is JFK And The Unspeakable...." Read more

"...This is a remarkable story of Jim Garrison, a brilliant, eccentric, and courageous district attorney, (and later judge), in New Orleans...." Read more

19 customers mention "Writing quality"8 positive11 negative

Customers have different views on the writing quality. Some praise the author's talent and skill, describing her as a genuine scholar with impeccable English. Others find the writing style poor, choppy, and unorganized, making it difficult to read. The compositional style is often frustrating, with the author flitting between topics. Overall, the book provides a lot of detail, making it no light reading.

"...books and especially news articles which are poorly or just badly written...." Read more

"...Mellen's passion, brilliance, understanding, writing talent and just-plain-sleuthing-genius has resulted in a book which will change history...." Read more

"...The author’s compositional style is often frustrating, as she seems to flit about between topics and witness accounts, creating a sense of utter..." Read more

"...The author is a genuine scholar, as evidenced by the wealth of primary sources in the form of both archival documents and interviews...." Read more

9 customers mention "Pacing"0 positive9 negative

Customers find the pacing of the book slow. They mention there are too many facts and incidents without any overall explanation. The details are jumbled together, making it hard to follow the storyline and characters. Readers find the book confusing and off-putting at first. There is little analysis and disjointed nature, with an information overload.

"...There are too many jumbled together facts and incidents without any overall explanation. The book seems to be written by the author for the author...." Read more

"I must admit, I found this book very off-putting at first...." Read more

"...book inconsistent puzzle pieces such as this are provided, with little analysis, and the footnoting problem makes it extremely difficult for the..." Read more

"...This book is very long, has a bit of an information overload in it, and has a lot of different characters to try to keep up with...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Eddie Kasica
    5.0 out of 5 stars Saint Joan
    Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2005
    Verified Purchase
    The United States of America has never truly had its equivalent of Zola's "J'Accuse!" Until now. While the Dreyfus Affair is a joke compared to the far-reaching PERMANENT effects of the National Security State execution of President John F. Kennedy(don't think they're permanent? -- pick up the damn newspaper), quite a few books on the crime have been labeled Zolaesque: "Rush to Judgement", Weisberg's "Whitewash", Sylvia Meagher's "Accessories After the Fact"(a worthy forerunner of "Farewell to Justice" -- Meagher and Mellon are sisters of heart, toughness and understanding), Anthony Summers's "Conspiracy" and, of course, Gerald Posner's "Case Closed"(just kidding). But they weren't. Not even close, because they couldn't be. The cover-up of the crime continued well into the 1990s and -- like the film or not -- it was Stone's "JFK" which caused the break in the dam. The wave of the past 10 years, beginning with the publication and media-embrace of the malignant "Case Closed", has been intensely anti-conspiracy. As all of U.S. society has seemingly moved toward the worship of power for power's sake, leading to the establishment of the Bush Reich, anti-conspiracy ideology has become its own form of totalitarianism. In the power-saturated universe of Millennial America, seething with plots, anti-plot pronouncements have become as necessary as squeals in a slaughterhouse. But, there has been a counterwave. And it's now tidal. More fresh evidence regarding 11/22/63 has become available these past years than was available to the Warren Commission, Jim Garrison or the House Assassinations Committee when they were conducting their investigations or cover-ups. We have had to be patient, and now it's pay-off time. Christopher Lawford on the family, Gareth Porter on JFK and Vietnam, Bradley Ayers and Richard Whalen on Kennedy and Cuba, Gerald McKnight on the Warren Commission, and David Talbot's coming book on Bobby and the murder(`though the Mellen book may have made that release somewhat compromised).

    "Farewell to Justice" is the book we have all been waiting for, since the day the music died. Joan Mellen has always been one of the world's best film critics, a magnificent biographer(Kay Boyle, Marilyn Monroe & Bobby Knight!), and a great writing teacher. Now she has broken the case. There's no guessing here. No theoretical chapters on the validity of the Zapruder Film, the DalTex Building vs. a sewer drain opening, no jacket holes or bullet fragments. Just the moment-by-moment narrative of what happened to Jack Kennedy 42 years ago. And, best of all, why. The names are all here: the initiators, the designers, the middle-managers, and the mechanics. Mellen is also overwhelming in her recapturing what was really happening in the early 1960s United States. Not only those who care not about history relive it. As Americans, all of us relive Dallas every day of our lives. Everywhere we look, we can see the ghost of John F. Kennedy - and the shadows of the men and women who killed him. There is only one way to finally let him rest in peace: a cleaning-out from power of all those directly and indirectly responsible for his murder, and all those who have knowingly benefited from it. Germany could only put the ghosts of the Third Reich to rest through a complete de-nazification. The United States must do the same.

    There is also sadness in this book too, for those of us who see the Kennedys as true heroes. (And they are.) Mellen has solved many, many mysteries in the book. One of the most startling is her clinching the case as to whether or not Robert Kennedy knew of plots to murder Fidel Castro. As Mellen demonstrates, his involvement went way beyond mere knowledge. By answering this question, she also answers the questions as to why the Kennedy Family has been so forceful in impairing post-Warren investigations of the crime.

    Mellen's passion, brilliance, understanding, writing talent and just-plain-sleuthing-genius has resulted in a book which will change history. The corporate media will no doubt try to burn her at the stake. They will fail. Because there is no answer to this book. Except justice and revenge.
    189 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Sondra Hix
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Monumental Achievement
    Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Anyone wanting to know about the Garrison case in New Orleans, on which Oliver Stone's film "JFK" is based, has to read this book. The author is a genuine scholar, as evidenced by the wealth of primary sources in the form of both archival documents and interviews. The notes amount to about a third of the actual text and they are rich in detail. The other well-known book on this subject, "Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case" by James DiEugenio, stresses and downplays a few things differently and comes to different conclusions, but having read them both, I can only advise those less knowledgeable than these two authors about the assassination of President Kennedy to read both and make up their own minds. Neither suffers from significant credibility gaps, in my opinion.
    One person found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Dawn Meredith
    4.0 out of 5 stars Totally redeems Garrison, but....
    Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2007
    Verified Purchase
    When I first ordered this book now nearly two years ago I was so excited to read it. And for the most part I loved the book. Joan Mellen proves that Garrsion was right all along. (But I already knew that). And the portions on Garrison are so good that this book is definately worth getting. That said two pieces of her "evidence" were very troubling to me.

    First, that RFK sent CIA stooge Walter Sheridan to sabotage the Garrison investigation. I know that Ms. Mellen believes Bobby was killed by a conspiracy, (from personal communications with her), so it makes no sense that Bobby would try to sabotage the only true investigation into the murder of his brother. (When we all know that it was the CIA and FBI who sabotaged Garrison).

    The second problem I had with this book is the old CIA-disinformation chestnut that the brothers Kennedy were trying to kill Castro. Her proof of this comes from a man named Angelo Murgado. Most of the serious researchers on this case who I know I know did not find any of this credible. I know that Ms. Mellen really believes Murgado. But Ms. Mellen also knows that that JFK was conducting secret plans to meet with Castro and restore relations with Cuba, literally on the eve of Dallas. So plans to kill Castro, which we know the CIA to be engaged in, did not include the Kennedy brothers. Who lead Ms Mellen to Murgado? That most unreliable of sources Gerry Hemming.

    I also thought we could have done without the sex in this book.

    I still recommend reading AFTJ for the updated information on Garrison's case. It actually brought me to tears. And I agree with her title. Garrison's case should have changed history. But we have a press that is controlled by the CIA (google "Operation Mockingbird").

    Thankfully the net is a treasure trove of information on this case. (Beware of McAdams however.)

    And forums like John Simkin's "JFK Assassination Debate" a subsection of his Education forum allows people interested in this case from all over the world to converse with each other. The thread there on this book is lively and informative. Ms. Mellen put many years of work into this book- it's well worth reading.

    Even better, check out Deep Politics Forum. The one forum with no lone nutters.

    Attorney Dawn Meredith

    Austin, Tx.

    ps. I need to go back and re-read this book in light of some new information, Joan is also doing an update so I think I will just wait and get that.
    26 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report

Top reviews from other countries

  • Erle Williams
    5.0 out of 5 stars Factual and thorough research and reporting Long overdue
    Reviewed in Canada on December 11, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    I liked the careful research done for this book. It has finally answered some of the questions that has been alluded to over the years about the assassination of JFK
    Report
  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Worth Reading!
    Reviewed in Australia on June 28, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    A good insight as to just how badly Garrison was treated and the investigation thwarted!
    And of course the question still remains "If Garrison was so off base and incorrect in his accusations then WHY was every agency doing their utmost to derail his investigation, steal documents, tamper with statements and just plain sabotage???"
    Report
  • Luc REYNAERT
    5.0 out of 5 stars An open secret
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 5, 2007
    Verified Purchase
    For J. Mellen, it is an open secret that US intelligence services were directly involved in JFK's assassination. For their deadly feud with JFK, the latter himself gave the reasons: he wanted to `curb activities of spook outfits' and `splinter them in thousand pieces and scatter them to the winds.' He put all local intelligence offices under control of the US ambassadors.
    Beside intelligence (`the clandestine arm of warfare interests in the US government'), the war machine corporations wanted in no way to attach their fortunes to the Kennedys.

    The only legal action against the alleged perpetrators of the assassination came from a courageous district attorney, Jim Garrison. That he was very near (part of ) the truth is proven by the frontal vicious attacks launched against him and his investigation by intelligence itself. All legal and illegal means were good enough to destroy him.
    But he was only near a part of the truth: the ground staff, not near those who ordered the murder, the upper level of the plotters.
    Joan Mellen shows profusely how Oswald was continuously surrounded by intelligence agents and how the latter shared their beds with the Mafia. J. Garrison knew that he fought against `a secret state of its own' and `a major menace to the democracy we live in'.
    The author reveals also that there was an alternative scapegoat in the wings, if the framing of Oswald would not succeed, and, more controversially, that Bob Kennedy was against Garrison's investigation, because he thought he needed `to gain the presidency to deal with the facts of his brother's death.'

    This book throws a shrill light on the Pravda-like media (C. Johnson) who are creating a Kafkaesque world which has nothing to do with this world's political and economic realities. Another example in this book: the U2 Powers incident in 1956 was a provocation to kill détente between Eisenhower and Khrushchev.
    This book is a must read for all those who are interested in the most important coup d'état of the 20th century and who want to understand the world we live in.
    Report
  • Allofthethings!
    5.0 out of 5 stars This Christmas gift made my boyfriend very happy
    Reviewed in Canada on March 5, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    I got this as a gift for my boyfriend, and he's SO HAPPY with it. He's been longing to have this book for years! He even tried to buy it off Amazon a few years ago, but it never arrived, and he didn't bother getting a refund or exchange. He's a weirdo, but so am I, and I love him!
    Report
  • Peter
    5.0 out of 5 stars FIRST RATE BOOK ABOUT A FIRST CLASS HERO.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 10, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    If you have ever wondered about the truth behind the film 'JFK' this book is for you. It tells the story of Jim Garrison, the only man to bring a prosecution in the assassination of John Kennedy and how the American government set out to destroy his case. This is the second edition of the text and is a great improvement on the first. Errors have been corrected and the text has been updated to include documents released by the U.S. National Archives since its first publication. An important book that should be read by everyone interested in America and her recent history. It places Garrison in his proper context and restores him to the pantheon of American heroes.
    Report