Twenty years ago, David Marion, then a near-illiterate teenager, was sent to prison for life for the murder of two grown men. Hugh Freyl, a rich, blind lawyer, spots something ex­tra­or­di­nary in him, and spends years educating him behind bars, then securing his release. Now, Freyl has been brutally murdered and David tracks down the killer.

Brady weaves together two stories, Hugh’s narrative of the last twenty years and David’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion, dove­tail­ing them neatly. David is intense and paranoid, al­ter­nate­ly charming and terrifying those he comes in contact with.

The book is part mystery, part an indictment of prison brutality and the foster system. En­ter­tain­ing, but the plot veers off into im­plau­si­bil­i­ty, even before the dénouement: Freyl’s childhood friends include both a Supreme Court Justice and a pres­i­den­tial candidate.