Minute-Man

A ‘sleepy’ New England town is ‘rocked’ to its core when police report the rape and murder of a young woman and claim that evidence found at the scene belongs to a young man that resides in the town. His claim to have no knowledge of the crime, even though he is unable to explain how his bloody fingerprint and a piece of his torn pants was found at the scene, leads to his having to stand trial in what authorities feel is a simple open and shut case. What follows can only be described as ‘astounding’, as it takes the reader through a roller-coaster set of emotions that will continue to the end of the story.

The Roman Emperor Claudius, having a severe speech impediment from childhood on, was considered to be an idiot by all the learned Senators of Rome because of it. However, when he stood before this august body of men, the words he uttered to them was, “Is it more important how long it takes to answer a question...or what’s contained in the response that really matters?” In his book Minute-Man, author R. T. Waters comes to show us that the time taken to answer a question by his main character, nineteen-year-old Lennie Zito, should be considered to be of no importance when examined in relation to his eventual intelligent answer, no matter that it comes much later than we are accustomed to receiving.

The author shows us that patience is truly a virtue when applied to Lennie, for time and time again he comes forth with enlightenment far greater than his nineteen years should provide. Mr. Waters has us examine our tendency to rush to judgment when all information provided us seems to fill only one side of the ledger we use to make final decisions about a person, and cleverly has a young teenage girl serve as the counter-weight to the judgment we thought should be final. Keeping the faith, when all seems hopeless, is as important now, as it was when patriots employed it against seemingly impossible odds over 200 years ago and reinforced the true meaning of our never give up spirit. Mr. Waters simply asks the readers of Minute-Man to do likewise.