Joe, a violent sadistic offender since his teens, has received a life sentence for multiple murder. But is it enough? Most traditional life sentences have a fixed ‘minimum term’ which means most rapists and killers will eventually be freed. It’s only a matter of time. But their victims cannot be brought back from the dead, or from psychic mutilation they have suffered. Their families endure a true ‘life sentence’ of suffering from which there is no possibility of parole or early prison release.
A clique of retired judges, called ‘The Project’, have formed a secret supreme court to covertly review all the traditional life sentences, and, in cases of the worst injustices, intervene. They employ a network of ghosts to secretly whisk away the selected prisoner, Joe in this case, to the invisible supermax, a futuristic prison. There, Joe is forced to undergo a radical treatment of self-discovery called The Born Again, conducted by four mysterious doctors and an android robot. Few inmates can endure. They either commit suicide or go mad. Joe must find a way to survive The Born Again.
About the Author :
John Mullins is an American living in UK, widowed after 44 years of marriage to his English wife Lesley. He studied Theology and worked for 28 years as a child protection social worker. For the past nineteen years he has been the correspondent and editor of a newsletter for a small international contemplative prayer group, called The Fellowship of Solitaries. He lives in Northumberland.
Review :
“The story has a gripping plot which offers great originality with its futuristic, dystopian angle on rehabilitation. It is a pleasure to read such a profound, intelligent piece of writing. It’s certainly opened my eyes to a more spiritual understanding of life, and has given me hope.”
“This was perhaps the most creative and ingenious book that I have read in a very long time. It kept me in anticipation and often amazement, like Heinlein’s ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’.”
“As a former forensic psychiatrist specialising in high-security male PD (Personality Disorder) individuals, I wished that I had had this book available at an early stage in my career. I am very impressed by the interweaving of religious, psychological and redemptive themes, especially the understanding of remorse as that is usually shallowly understood. I have seen remorse in the truest sense, only once. In the book I found that turn of events moving. It is one of those works that needs reading several times to get the most from it.”
