TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE

Decades ago, a man in Florida was executed for two murders that he may not have committed. The woman who witnessed his execution remains haunted by questions around the case - and now, in her work as a private investigator, decides to seek answers. A vivid portrait of a shocking crime, and one woman's deeply personal quest to sort truth from lies.

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. When it later emerged that Tafero may not have committed the murders, McGarrahan became haunted by her memory of that gristly execution - and appalled at her own unquestioning acceptance of the state's version of events.

Decades later, in the midst of her successful career as a private investigator, McGarrahan finally decides to seek the truth of what happened. Her investigation takes her back to Florida, where she combs through court files and interviews everyone involved in the case. Questions blossom into obsessions, and we are plunged back to the Miami of the 1960s and 1970s, where a shady cast of characters emerges. Gangsters and kingpins and beautiful women inhabit a dangerous world of nightclubs, speed boats, and drug cartels. Violence is everywhere. The murdered police officers, she discovers, are only one part of the picture.

But even as McGarrahan circles closer to the truth, a story of guilt and innocence becomes more complex. She gradually discovers that she hasn't been alone in her search for closure, because when a human life is forcibly taken - whether by bullet, or by electric chair - the reckoning is long and difficult. Written with precision and authority, Two Truths and a Lie is both a true-crime narrative and a profound meditation on grief and complicity.

Ellen McGarrahan worked for a decade as an investigative reporter at newspapers in New York City, Miami, and San Francisco before accidentally finding her calling as a private detective. Her honors include two Pulitzer nominations and an award for Public Service from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.