Consequences

Joey Turner is a smart, handsome man who operates with impunity, cheating on his devoted fiancé, running numbers from the local speakeasy, and beating all who challenge or question him. But justice finds everyone sooner or later.

In 1931 Joey Turner is arrested for a brutal Christmas Day murder, a crime he didn’t commit. His alibi, the boss’s wife, betrays him and his past catches up as witnesses testify against him in a strong case of circumstantial evidence, assisted by his lifetime of immoral behavior displayed in court. Though his attorney, Stephen Bolt, believes he is innocent, Joey is convicted and sent to Folsom prison where he quickly makes friends with his cell mate, a lifer named Blick, who is in prison for killing his wife. Blick, an aging career criminal, is searching for an emotional escape from a life sentence.

Joey learns the ugliness and hardship of prison before prisoner’s rights existed. Warden Harding allows prisoner experimentation, a common practice during the time. Joey is hated by a sadistic guard, Morris. Through a series of events staged by Morris, the prison doctors determine Joey is a viable candidate for a promising new experimental procedure – the frontal lobotomy. In the meantime, Stephen Bolt and Joey’s family and fiancé have worked to free Joey. They are successful, but only days before he is released, Joey is lobotomized and returned to his family.

Joey’s change results in the transformation of the people around him. For Joey, Blick, Stephen and those in Joey’s life this is about redemption, suffering, and the hope that is the catalyst to that end. Justice also finds those who have wronged Joey in violent and unexpected ways.

Based, in part, on a true account with extensive research and rich in historical detail, Consequences is an exciting read as well as a book that addresses greater issues such as how even the most disheartened find hope in unexpected ways and society’s tendency to often value the very things that destroy it.