![]() Because McGarrahan followed the case for decades, especially when the co-defendant in the case is let off of death row on appeal, there are all kinds of things that happen before the main investigation that makes up most of the book. Much of the rest of the book jumps around and I wasn't always clear exactly when things were happening. The last third is the best, the most comprehensive and the most chronological. So we can follow along with her quest but it was clear to me all along that she wouldn't find peace because this story was just the thing she could solve, it wasn't the real thing. What's haunting her is the death penalty itself, which is only a minor part of this book. ![]() It's an interesting memoir, and McGarrahan learns a lot, but it's not fully satisfying because the book is about McGarrahan's efforts to learn the truth about whether an innocent man was executed when that's not really the thing that's haunting her. It's the first time in a long time I've read a book like this where someone gets stuck on a case and you understand completely why. I cannot tolerate most true crime, but I was drawn to this book because the author had a strong tie to the case, when she witnessed a man's execution as a young reporter and couldn't ever shake it. She gradually discovers that she hasn't been alone in her need for closure, because whenever a human life is forcibly taken-by bullet, or by electric chair-the reckoning is long and difficult for all. ![]() But even as McGarrahan circles closer to the truth, the story of guilt and innocence becomes more complex. The tragedy of the two murdered police officers, she discovers, is only the start of the mystery. She plunges back into the Miami of the 1960s and 1970s, where gangsters and drug kingpins and beautiful women inhabit a dangerous world of nightclubs, speed boats, and cartels. Her investigation takes her back to Florida, where she combs through court files and interviews everyone involved in the case. When it later emerged that Tafero may not have committed the murders, McGarrahan became haunted by that grisly execution-and appalled by her unquestioning acceptance of the state's version of events.ĭecades later, in the midst of her successful career as a private investigator, McGarrahan finally decides to find out the truth of what really happened. ![]() In 1990, Ellen McGarrahan was a young reporter for the Miami Herald when she covered the execution of Jesse Tafero, a man convicted of murdering two police officers. A journalist-turned-private investigator returns to the case that has haunted her for decades-a death row execution that may have killed an innocent man-in a deeply personal quest to sort truth from lies. ![]()
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