Book Summary and Reviews of Who Named the Knife by Linda Spalding

Book Summary

Murder. Hawaii’s beautiful Hanauma Bay. The suspects: two young mainlanders on their honeymoon. Maryann Acker, a pretty young Mormon woman, is 18. William, just out of prison, is 28. The crime is robbery, ending in a killing. And before the spree is over, another robbery and murder a few days later in California.

In 1982, Linda Spalding, a mainlander herself, living in Hawaii, is chosen as a juror for Maryann’s trial there. Surprisingly the chief witness against Maryann is William, accusing her of shooting their victim. Spalding has reasonable doubts, but on the last day of the trial, she is abruptly dismissed from the jury and Maryann is sentenced to life in prison.

Eighteen years later, Spalding stumbles over the journal she kept during the trial and reads it carefully. Was she right to have doubts? Then she tracks down Maryann, who is still incarcerated.

Linda writes, Maryann answers, and moved by the letter, Linda begins to uncover much more than the answer to the question of Maryann’s guilt or innocence. There’s the bold new friendship frustrated by monitored visits, hard-to-make phone calls and the dehumanizing results of years in prison. But as her understanding of the forces that drove Maryann’s actions grows, Linda finds herself compelled to examine her own past as well as Maryann’s.