cover image Life After Murder: Five Men in Search of Redemption

Life After Murder: Five Men in Search of Redemption

Nancy Mullane. Public Affairs, $26.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-61039-029-3

Can a murderer be redeemed? This is Mullane’s central theme in her revealing book of five murderers who all served lengthy sentences in California’s notorious San Quentin Prison, now seeking to live out the remainder of their tainted lives without condemnation or reproach. Without any attempt to excuse their crimes, Mullane, a producer for Public Radio International’s This American Life, offers a highly charged exposé of this quintet of hopeful ex-cons—Eddie Ramirez, Donald Cronk, Phillip Seiler, Jesse Reed, Richard Rael—battered by a wicked tangle of red tape and penal regulations, along with an unsympathetic outside world that refuses to either forget or forgive their transgressions. With their fates in the hands of the governor and the parole board, very few lifers are released, Mullane writes, and often wait up to 15 years between parole hearings. Boasting gripping, top-notch journalism, Mullane pierces the myth of the unredeemable killer with these portraits of troubled men in a society that fears and reviles them. Agent: Gail Ross Literary Agency. (June)