In 1966, Texan parole board member Ed Joe faces a moral reckoning when an inmate offers him a bribe for release. Seeking guidance from the mothers of both the inmate and the victim, he is forced to confront the tangled realities of justice, redemption, and the darkest avenues of his own mistakes.
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EXCERPT
“There’s this story I keep hearin’ ’round the prison,”
Clarence recounted. “This fella got sentenced to the electric
chair for shootin’ his neighbor. After appealin’ a couple dozen
times, he got his sentence reduced to just life—as if that made it
better.” He laughed.
The shackles around his arms and legs rattled as he
shifted in his seat. “Couple years later, that same fella sat on the
steel toilet in his cell. Fixin’ his lil’ ham radio, he pulled the wires
out with his teeth. Fella got electrocuted to death. Ain’t that a bit
of irony for you?”
Ed Joe hadn’t heard much of what Clarence said; he
instead studied the way the young inmate said it—his
demeanor.
“I believe bad luck follows those who don’t repent.”
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