The death penalty is one of the most hotly contested and longest-standing issues in American politics, and no place is more symbolic of that debate than Texas.

Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977, Texas has put more than 390 prisoners to death, far more than any other state. Texas Death Row puts faces to those condemned men and women, with stark and strangely engaging details on their crimes, sentencing, last meals, and last words.

Definitive, objective, and compulsively readable, Texas Death Row will provide ample fuel for readers on both sides of the death penalty debate.