The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha

Winner of the 2010 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. In this, her first novel, Rakha explores the capacity to forgive. Irene Stanley's son is killed and the murderer sits on death row in the Oregon State Penitentiary for nineteen years. For many of those years Irene empties herself of all feeling except hate and anger as she waits for his execution. And then a letter causes her to question the waste of her life and the truth about the man who is finally scheduled to die. This book will play devil's advocate with your notion of capital punishment no matter where you stand on the issue.