prison chaplains

"As a prison counselor, Daniel Dickens is no stranger to odd encounters with inmates. But when a particularly confident prisoner enters his office claiming that his session with a priest left him "fulfilled," Danny, who has led an unsatisfying life, has to know more. During their meeting, Danny finds there's little he can hide from this mysterious clergyman, and when an offer comes his way, he'll have to make a decision that will change his life forever..."--Back cover.

In 1983, twenty-seven-year old Earl Smith walked through the menacing gates of San Quentin State Prison just as everyone thought he would. As a gang member and criminal from a young age, Smith expected to do some time. But when he walked in it was not as an inmate but as the Chaplain of Death Row. A year earlier six bullets were fired into his body in a botched drug deal. Those bullets saved his soul and changed his life path forever. Twenty-three years later, Smith had played chess with Charles Manson, negotiated truces between rival gangs, and bore witness to the final thoughts and prayers of dozens of Death Row inmates.