College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same.

Iverson is a dying Vietnam veteran--and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home, after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.

As Joe writes about Carl's life, especially Carl's valor in Vietnam, he cannot reconcile the heroism of the soldier with the despicable acts of the convict. Joe, along with his skeptical female neighbor, throws himself into uncovering the truth, but he is hamstrung in his efforts by having to deal with his dangerously dysfunctional mother, the guilt of leaving his autistic brother vulnerable, and a haunting childhood memory.

Thread by thread, Joe unravels the tapestry of Carl’s conviction. But as he and Lila dig deeper into the circumstances of the crime, the stakes grow higher. Will Joe discover the truth before it’s too late to escape the fallout?

艾倫•艾絲肯斯

Allen Eskens

美國資深辯護律師。齣生於美國密蘇裏州傑斐遜市，就讀明尼蘇達大學，獲得新聞學學位，後就讀法學院，定居明尼蘇達曼卡多。

作為有20多年工作經驗的辯護律師，作者將親身經曆的眾多駭人聽聞的懸案融會貫通，寫齣瞭一係列犯罪懸疑佳作，如《我們掩埋的人生》 《另一個幌子》 《天堂可能墜落》等，並憑藉《我們掩埋的人生》成功躋身美國一流暢銷書作傢行列。