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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Apr 2019, 304 pages
Paperback:
Mar 2020, 320 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Donna Chavez
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A thrillingly suspenseful debut novel, and a fierce howl of rage that questions the true meaning of justice.
Rafael Zhettah relishes the simplicity and freedom of his life. He is the owner and head chef of a promising Houston restaurant. A pilot with open access to the boundless Texas horizon. A bachelor, content with having few personal or material attachments that ground him. Then, lightning strikes. When he finds Tieresse - billionaire, philanthropist, sophisticate, bombshell - sitting at one of his tables, he also finds his soul mate and his life starts again. And just as fast, when she is brutally murdered in their home, when he is convicted of the crime, when he is sentenced to die, it is all ripped away. But for Rafael Zhettah, death row is not the end. It is only the beginning. Now, with his recaptured freedom, he will stop at nothing to deliver justice to those who stole everything from him.
This is a heart-stoppingly suspenseful, devastating, page-turning debut novel. A thriller with a relentless grip that wants you to read it in one sitting. David R. Dow has dedicated his life to the fight against capital punishment - to righting the horrific injustices of the death penalty regime in Texas. He delivers the perfect modern parable for exploring our complex, uneasy relationships with punishment and reparation in a terribly unjust world.
PROLOGUE
On the cinder- block wall, twelve feet away from the bars to the cages where my prisoners spend their days, a digital clock counts down toward zero. When they saw that clock for the first time, before I pressed the start button to get the numbers moving, it read 58656:00:00. That's how many hours they're going to be where they are: twenty- four hours a day, 365 days a year, for 2,444 days— six years, eight months, and eleven days. Today the clock says 49896:00:00. One year down, a bit more than five and a half to go. To celebrate, the three of us are having cake.
I say to prisoner number 1, whose name is Sarah, Happy anniversary.
She doesn't answer.
I say to prisoner number 2, whose name is Leonard, You too.
He doesn't say anything either.
I cut the cake in thirds and put their two pieces on two paper plates. I stick a plastic fork in each slice, like a birthday candle. I say, Y'all enjoy now.
And I slide each plate through the 4.25 inch space sepa¬rating the...
It is circumstances that carry the wave that sweeps trendy Houston restaurateur Rafael Zhettah to death row in David R. Dow’s taut roller coaster of a thriller. The fact that Dow is a lawyer who has worked with more than a hundred death row clients imbues intimate authenticity into this debut, giving it a spark of life, and even a punch of gallows humor...continued
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(Reviewed by Donna Chavez).
John Grisham, New York Times bestselling author of The Reckoning
Every person wrongfully convicted of a crime at some point dreams of getting revenge against the system...As I zipped through the pages, I kept thinking, 'This book is too thin. I want more.' Terry Teachout, drama critic, The Wall Street Journal
[A] terrifying modern-day revenger's tale, one whose furious, irresistible momentum will sweep you up - and make you think.
In David R. Dow's thriller, Confessions of an Innocent Man, the protagonist is sentenced to death for the murder of his wife. Since the murder is committed in Texas, one of the 30 U.S. states that still allows capital punishment, he is sent directly to death row. There he awaits his execution among the 200+ other residents. From 1976 to December 2018, some 550 prisoners have been executed in Texas alone. (In 1972, in the ruling of Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional, but this was negated by the 1976 ruling of Gregg v. Georgia, and states gradually began reincorporating the death penalty into their legal systems in the following years.)
The total number of executions nationwide has ebbed as ...
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