The Owl of Death Row
Richard Harjo’s job is to counsel death row inmates in Oklahoma’s notorious McAlester Prison. That usually consists of convincing them heaven is a sort of afterlife work release program, and God is the most gullible parole officer ever. All they’ve got to do to qualify is have faith as they walk quietly to the execution chamber.
No wonder Richard has lost faith in all things supernatural.
Everything changes when he meets a Choctaw murderer named Holabi Minco. Native guards say the inmate is a witch… and they might be right. He keeps a popsicle stick calendar in his cell that tells when people are going to die and does so more accurately than the DOC roster. Minco befriends Richard and sends him on a series of extralegal missions to give him insight into the lives of the other death row inmates. The chaplain crosses paths with a pole dancer, white supremacists, and a secret town full of outlaws that isn’t on any official map. What’s always been a humdrum, hypocritical life is suddenly an adventure. When Holabi Minco’s beautiful daughter, Kinta, enters the picture, Richard is hooked. He quickly finds himself drawn into a complicated plot to break her father out of prison. It involves a slice of something called Dead’n’berried pie, a shoot out on the prison parking lot, and a disappearing act that looks too much like magic. Who could possibly resist?
John T. Biggs
