Five Novels

Five Novels contains the following novels: Midnight on Death Row, The Trial of Shada King, The Great Barrington Train Wreck, Frontier Justice, and The Book of the Dead. In the space allowed, I will give brief descriptions of these novels.Midnight on Death Row: A shooting in 2006 by two eighteen-year-old students at a high school in Georgia leaves nineteen dead. One of the perpetrators is killed at the scene, while the other, Karyn Hill, is arrested. After she is sentenced to death, her mother and sister struggle with vastly different feelings about her possible execution. In the end, the tragedy inherent in the senseless murder of nineteen people overwhelms everyone in a tidal wave of grief.In the Trial of Shada King, a woman is accused of murdering the man who raped her. Shada claims that she acted in self-defense, and since she was wearing a wire that recorded the shooting, her claim seems to be valid. But upon further investigation, the prosecuting attorney comes to the conclusion that the shooting was staged and that the audiotape is an elaborate hoax.The Great Barrington Train Wreck describes the life of a homeless guy named Mike Stratton. Living on the street isn't easy, but Mike knows his way around…at least until the day he almost dies from hypothermia. Scrambling around, he finds a job as a cab driver, rents an apartment, and falls in love with his most beautiful fare, the enigmatic Alexandra Hughes. Mike becomes obsessed with her, and before long, it appears that she needs him—especially on the night when she tells him, through a flood of tears, that her racist father has murdered her black boyfriend and is coming after her next. But all is not quite what it seems in this tale of a down-and-out guy who is never able to see through the smokescreen of his lust.Frontier Justice describes the results of a crime committed by two teenagers when they stood on an overpass and hurled cement blocks at cars, which resulted in the death of eight people. During the arrest of one of the perpetrators, a police officer named Adriana Jones persuaded the suspect to surrender his gun, but shortly later, he was shot to death. Adriana claims it was self-defense, but the prosecutor, after reviewing both Adriana's history and the evidence at the scene, charges her with second degree murder. Will she be convicted? And how would you have voted if you were on that jury?In The Book of the Dead, a woman interested in psychic phenomena begins to hear a man's voice. The voice is from a man named Daren Slade, and he begins his narrative with the futile attempt he made to save a drowning woman. Later, at his 25th high school reunion, he reconnects with his high school sweetheart, Savannah Cross…that night, they begin a tumultuous drive during which they become involved in a number of bizarre incidents before they return to the river where Daren attempted to save the drowning woman. Here, he encounters…