Do you have time for a quick and heartfelt thread? Settle in, because I'm going to tell you about a book that was published last week that you absolutely have to read. (Not mine. I mean, yes, please read mine. But that's not where I'm going with this.) 1/

When I was in college, I worked on the school paper alongside my friend Ellen McGarrahan--we both worked in arts, but she was a different kind of reporter: Tenacious, outwardly fearless, and would spare herself nothing to get at the truth of whatever she covered. 2/

After school, we went in different directions. In 1990, when I was starting my career at EW, Ellen was the youngest capital bureau reporter at the Miami Herald. When the assignment came up to go to a prison and witness an execution, she didn't flinch. 3/

I believe all executions are wrong. But this execution, an electrocution, WENT wrong, horribly. The condemned man's head essentially caught on fire. He did not die quickly. 4/

The details are hers to tell. But the experience, quite naturally, shook her to her core, made her question everything, and set her on a path away from journalism, to a new life, and a new career as what she is now: An extraordinary private investigator. 5/

But the case of Jesse Tafero never stopped haunting her, and a few years ago--at what turned out to be real peril--she decided to confront it. To reinvestigate it. Not just the execution, but the possibility that he was wrongly convicted. 6/

That is the story she tells in TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE, a frightening, thrilling, and moving detective story that is also a personal and moral journey. She remains what she always was: A brave and glorious writer. 7/

David von Drehle wrote about the book here. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-death-penalty-is-in-the-death-throes/2021/02/05/e332c23e-67cb-11eb-8c64-9595888caa15_story.html He calls it "a masterpiece--more honest than In Cold Blood and more profound than The Executioner's Song." 8/

I agree. TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE is stunning. I came away shaken and moved, and I think you will too. It is more than worth your time. Thanks for listening. Here's how to order it. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/252445/two-truths-and-a-lie-by-ellen-mcgarrahan/