Doubleday
November 2010
On Sale: October 26, 2010
Featuring: Travis Boyette; Donté Drumm
320 pages ISBN: 0385528043 EAN: 9780385528047 Hardcover Add to Wish List
For every
innocent man sent to prison, there is a guilty one left on
the outside. He doesn’t understand how the police and
prosecutors got the wrong man, and he certainly doesn’t
care. He just can’t believe his good luck. Time passes and
he realizes that the mistake will not be corrected: the
authorities believe in their case and are determined to get
a conviction. He may even watch the trial of the person
wrongly accused of his crime. He is relieved when the
verdict is guilty. He laughs when the police and prosecutors
congratulate themselves. He is content to allow an innocent
person to go to prison, to serve hard time, even to be
executed.
Travis Boyette is such a man. In 1998, in
the small East Texas city of Sloan, he abducted, raped, and
strangled a popular high school cheerleader. He buried her
body so that it would never be found, then watched in
amazement as police and prosecutors arrested and convicted
Donté Drumm, a local football star, and marched him off to
death row.
Now nine years have passed. Travis has
just been paroled in Kansas for a different crime; Donté is
four days away from his execution. Travis suffers from an
inoperable brain tumor. For the first time in his miserable
life, he decides to do what’s right and confess.
But
how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges, and
politicians that they’re about to execute an innocent man?