Within These Walls Book

Former Texas prison chaplain Rev. Carroll Pickett, working with two time Edgar Award-winner and New York Times best selling author Carlton Stowers, provides this eloquent, unflinching look at capital punishment.Within These Walls is the powerful memoir of Rev. Pickett, who spent fifteen years as the death house chaplain at "The Walls," the Huntsville unit of the Texas prison system.In that capacity Rev. Pickett ministered to 95 men before they were put to death by lethal injection. They came with sinister nicknames like "The Candy Man" and "The Good Samaritan Killer," some contrite, some angry-a few who might even have been innocent.All of them found in Rev. Pickett their last chance for an unbiased confessor who would look at them only as fellow humans, not simply as the convicted criminals the rest of society had already dismissed them as.This first-hand experience gave Rev. Pickett the unique insight needed to write an impassioned statement on the realities of capital punishment in America.The result is a thought-provoking and compelling book that takes the reader inside the criminal mind, inside the execution chamber, and inside the heart of a remarkable man who shares his thoughts and observations not only about capital punishment, but about the dark world of prison society.AUTHORBIO: Rev. Pickett is today an outspoken anti-death penalty activist.He is retired from the Department of Corrections but still preaches near Huntsville, Texas.Carlton Stowers is the author of more than two doze non-fiction books, including the Edgar Award-winging Careless Whispers, the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Innocence Lost, and Open Secrets.He has also written two books for children-A Hero Named George and Hard Lessons-which are being used by elementary schools as part of their drug and gang prevention program.He and his wife live in Cedar Hill, Texas.Read More