Spencer Arrowood was a young, untried deputy sheriff when
his testimony helped convict a Tennessee youth for the
brutal slaying of two hikers along the Appalachian Trail.
Now, twenty years later, Spencer receives an invitation to
an execution. After two decades on death row, a date has
finally been set to strap Fate Harkryder into the chair and
throw the switch. But time has eroded Spencer's moral
certainty of guilt and raised the specter of another murder.
Over a century ago, it is said that a man was murdered in
his sleep, that a young wife and mother was accused of the
crime, and that on the gallows her last words were silenced
by her father's order. In 1833 Frankie Silver became the
first woman in North Carolina to be hanged for murder. But
what really happened so long ago becomes an obsession for
Spencer Arrowood as the parallels between Frankie and Fate,
between two crimes more than a hundred years apart, become
as clear -- and as shocking -- as the single truth that
joins two condemned souls.
Suddenly, Spencer Arrowood is engaged in a race against time
to keep history from happening all over again, and to save
the life of a man who just may be innocent after all.
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