Spencer Arrowood was a young, untried deputy sheriff when his testimony helped convict a Tennessee youth for the brutal slaying of two hikers along the Appalachian Trail. Now, twenty years later, Spencer receives an invitation to an execution. After two decades on death row, a date has finally been set to strap Fate Harkryder into the chair and throw the switch. But time has eroded Spencer's moral certainty of guilt and raised the specter of another

She was a blond goddess, a box office megastar. Every woman wanted to be her; every man wanted to bed her. But over a year ago Devon Stafford vanished without a trace. As a biographer, Jake Gannon had taught himself to follow the clues of a person's life story like a detective. As an ex-Marine, he was accustomed to being firmly in control. But when his car died in a little town called Mare's Nest on the Carolina coast, he had to admit he'd come