Based on a true story:

My son Michael disappeared in 1980. He was sixteen. In 1989 the FBI informed me that a "lifer" had confessed to killing Michael and burying him in a swamp. I went to meet that prisoner near an alligator slide in the Alabama woods so he could lead us to where he had buried my son. This novel is the result of my journey there, looking for a corpse and finding live ones. --Len Williams

Billy Ray Billings grew up dirt poor and tough, and he got into petty crime early on. When he’s wrongly convicted of a fourth felony, he is sentenced to life, a victim of Alabama’s three-strike law. In prison he meets an inmate who encourages him to take advantage of an education program, and he thrives on it. Yet his intellectual awakening fuels his ambitions and he dreams of escape. Seeing the story of a missing child on a milk carton, Billy Ray falsely confesses to burying the child in a swamp, and gets away while supposedly leading authorities to a grave.

Beginning his life anew as Harry Brown, he earns a law degree and achieves success, but he can’t forget the two cops who framed him and nearly stole his life. That’s when he and an old friend devise a complicated and daring strategy to get finally the justice that’d been deferred for many years.