THE OFFICER'S DAUGHTER

Powerful reflections on crime, murder, punishment, and redemption.

Johnson, a writer and producer for HBO’s Bosch, among many other crime shows, opens on a harrowing note: “When I was sixteen, my sixteen-year-old cousin, Karen, had her face blown off at point-blank range by a sawed-off shotgun in a robbery gone awry at a local Burger King in the Bronx.” That terrible crime occurred nearly 40 years ago, and though it never faded from memory, it was made immediate by a letter from the victim’s older brother asking that Johnson make a plea to the parole board to ask that the killer not be released from prison: The author knew a thing or two about imprisonment and the parole process: Her late father had been a parole officer, which he called “the worst job in the world,” while the victim’s father was a police officer at the time of the murder. The three young men who were implicated in the crime, all imprisoned—and lucky for them, Johnson suggests, lest her father and uncle have tracked them down and killed them outright—had arrived at various stages of repentance. One had pledged to make his life virtuous to atone for the act while the actual shooter presented a more problematic case. “In ten parole hearings over the course of fourteen years,” writes Johnson, “he never once said the words ‘I’m sorry.’ He forgave himself, but he had never asked to be forgiven. I didn’t forgive him. I couldn’t.” The outcome of this poignant and provocative story arrives after numerous compelling twists and turns and many revelations, including the fact that the scenario of her cousin’s killing was very different in reality from the one she had remembered for all these years. Still, the central truth remains: A young woman who would now be in her mid-50s has long been dead, her killers live, and Johnson is left to ponder whether—and how—justice has been served.

A remarkable exploration of forgiveness by a veteran storyteller.