Portland Public Library

Two truths and a lie, a murder, a private investigator, and her search for justice, Ellen McGarrahan

eng

no index present

non fiction

Two truths and a lie

1143796245

Ellen McGarrahan

a murder, a private investigator, and her search for justice

"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 that grisly execution--and appalled by her 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 find out the truth of what really happened. Her investigation takes her back to Florida, where she combs through court files and interviews everyone involved in the case. She plunges back into the Miami of the 1960s and 1970s, where 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, the story of guilt and innocence becomes more complex. She gradually discovers that she hasn't been alone in her search for closure, because whenever a human life is forcibly taken--by bullet, or by electric chair--the reckoning is long and difficult. Both a gripping true-crime narrative and a fascinating glimpse into the life of a private investigator, Two Truths and a Lie is ultimately a profound meditation on grief and complicity"--, Provided by publisher

Away -- Prologue: Six minutes past sever -- Part 1: Florida. A real strange situation -- By glue and by dream -- The most dangerous people -- No one is going to talk to you -- A squealer, a liar, and a mute -- The fugitive -- Don't you worry that someone is going to kill you? -- So much blood -- The missing pixels -- Fifteen miles, seventeen minutes -- Everything. It was all gone. -- The personification of death, if I chose -- The closest thing to a god in prison -- Naw, he ain't shot him -- A very uneasy feeling -- Grace -- Part 2: But which truth?. Investigation 101 -- But which truth? -- If anybody moves, they're dead -- The playground -- The kingdom of Lochac -- Investigator strait -- Part 3: Gone ghost. The boxes -- Shattered glass/shiny gun -- What kind of strange fate -- Metal rods, running through -- On the road -- Michael J. Satz, state attorney -- The truth -- The heat -- Home -- Epilogue: The price of a lie