“The topic of his sermon the day before had been forgiveness—God’s infinite and overwhelming power to forgive our sins, regardless of how heinous they might be…Travis was convinced he could never be forgiven. But he was curious.”

Before he meets murderer Travis Boyette, Reverend Schroeder thinks about the concepts of forgiveness and mercy only as abstract topics for his sermons. However, the pastor’s words move Boyette to try to repent, despite the magnitude of his offense.

“He tried to appear upbeat, hopeful, confident that a miracle was on the way. The miracle was slowly coming together, some four hundred miles due north, in Topeka, Kansas.”

The indefatigable defense attorney Robbie Flak, here filing appeals he knows will go nowhere, struggles to maintain the confidence and optimism he knows his overworked and underpaid staff (as well as Donté himself) needs. The miraculous confession of the real killer is incredible luck—though the novel will show that even this unlikely chance is not enough to save Donté.

“What’s more important here, Joey? Your reputation or Donté’s life?”

The novel makes the case that those who have worked to put an innocent man on death row did so for petty and self-serving reasons: political opportunity, fear of scandal, or hunger for the media spotlight. Here, Joey Gamble has to answer a private investigator’s question about his priorities, but even being put on the spot like this is not enough to get Joey to recant and thus expose himself to shame for the sake of another’s life.