"You won't easily forget the soul-destroying atmosphere of the first prison visit You'll recall the intensity of the love scenes You'll remember the strange parallels between the characters' lives, and the way the discovery of those parallels causes these people to act with more or less empathy toward their fellow human beings. And you'll carry all these feelings away with you for days or maybe even weeks after you've turned the last page of the book--which is not, I think, something that could be said of the normal courtroom thriller."--New York Times Book Review

Death Row inmate Rommy Gandolph insists he's innocent-and new evidence has convinced his courtappointed attorney. Once a skeptic, Kindle County corporate lawyer Arthur Raven is now a fervent crusader. But in the world of criminal law he's a rookie squaring off against a D.A. determined to prove she's right, a female judge who served time for taking bribes, and the original detective on the case eager to seal Rommy's doom. The battles are hard-fought and more vicious than anything Raven has ever imagined. Because when the state has the power to kill, everything is life or death.