Execution Eve

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In September 1941 golf star Marion Miley and her mother were killed at the Lexington (Kentucky) Country Club during a botched burglary. Three men were convicted: Robert Anderson, Thomas Penney and Raymond Baxter. Penney, the mastermind, fingered Anderson, whom he hated, as his accomplice. While on death row Penney converted to Catholicism and recanted his testimony. Then he stood mute; if he wouldn't testify on Anderson's behalf there could not be a new trial. But the question of Anderson's innocence plagued Eddyville Penitentiary Warden Jess Buchanan. What unfolds is a tense reconstruction of the execution night. According to law, each man was to be executed in the order of conviction: Anderson, Penney and Baxter. Buchanan told Penney that the order would be changed, Penney going first. This was fine with Penney because he could go to his death a good Catholic and still railroad Anderson, according to the warden, who changed the order again. Anderson would go to the chair first, giving Penney a chance to test his newfound Christian conscience. In a riveting book that plays out like a mystery novel, the author, Warden Buchanan's son, takes us through that fateful night and confronts us with the reality of Anderson's guilt. Film rights to Multimedia. (Nov.)