The Volunteer
by Barbara Taylor Sissel
In the fall of 1999, psychologist Sophia Beckman is compelled by the court to give testimony on behalf of a death row inmate that results in his sentence being overturned. Haunted by secrets from her past, she avoids the media spotlight as much as possible, but soon, other prisoners’ families come seeking her assistance. One family in particular, the wife, children, and brother of Jarrett Capshaw, is especially insistent. Forty-one days ago Jarrett’s request to die was granted by the State of Texas, and he became a dead man walking, a man they call a volunteer.
Jarrett’s crimes were unusual, involving the theft of precious Mayan antiquities. Murder was never part of the plan, but murder is what happened. He pulled the trigger, and as little as he feels prepared for it, as much as he struggles with matters of the soul, he’s ready to die. It is the only way his family and the families of his victims will be free to move on. While Jarrett labors to find the words to say good-bye to those he has loved, Sophia finds herself drawn into a relationship with his wife and oldest son. It is Jarrett’s family she can’t resist and there will be a price to pay. But not even Sophia could have foreseen the outcome when the brutal truth is exposed, the unalloyed facts that, incredibly, will deliver Jarrett’s fate straight into her hands.
“If you love Jodi Picoult and Anita Shreve, read Barbara Taylor Sissel.” ~ Joni Rodgers, NYT bestselling author of Sugarland, Crazy For Trying, and memoir, Bald in the Land of Big Hair
“THE VOLUNTEER is a story of so many things that are not talked about … you can only learn about them by noticing the empty shape that people talk around. It’s exactly like negative space in art, when you depict the object by drawing the space around it.” ~ Darla Tagrin, Artist
At the heart of every crime, there’s a family…. That fact is what drives Barbara’s fiction. It’s issue oriented, threaded with elements of suspense and defined by its particular emphasis on how crime effects families, the victim’s family, the perpetrator’s family. She indie published her first novel, The Ninth Step, in August of 2011 and she hasn’t looked back since. The Volunteer came out in October of 2011 and in November 2011, The Last Innocent Hour, originally published by Panther Creek Press in trade paper was digitized for release as an indie e-book.
Currently Barbara is represented by the fabulous Barbara Poelle of the Irene Goodman Literary Agency and under contract with MIRA/Harlequin for Evidence of Life, which will make its print debut in April 2013, and a second novel that will appear in 2014.
Although she once lived on the grounds of a prison facility in Kentucky with her then prison warden husband, (A fact that might explain the nature of her writing.) she now resides near Houston, Texas. An avid gardener and reader, Barbara is the mother of two wonderful sons, who are an endless source of learning, laughter and joy.
For more about Barbara you can visit her website here.
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