Death At Midnight: The Confession of an Executioner
Now a criminal-justice professor, Cabana spent 20-plus years in corrections in Massachusetts (his home state), Florida, Missouri, and Mississippi; he began his postcollege prison work at the Magnolia State's notorious Parchman Penitentiary and closed his administrative career as its superintendent and the state's interim corrections commissioner. This memoirblends three stories: Cabana's career; the shift in his views on capital punishment; and the relationship he developed with convicted murderer Connie Ray Evans, the second man whose execution Cabana supervised as warden at Parchman. As his preface concedes, Cabana is "not John Grisham" : his narrative is often overwritten and many significant issues of prison administration receive less attention than readers might expect. ButDeathis not written for a professional audience: it is a plea to ordinary citizens to reject the "misleading political rhetoric and journalistic sensationalism" that paint capital punishment as "the quick fix, the simple solution, to a very complex problem." Promotion, including a Phil Donahue appearance, may help bring Cabana's heartfelt words to their intended audience.Mary Carroll