Compass in the Blood

When the prison warden's wife, Katherine Soffel, helped her inmate lover and his brother escape from prison, they were killed and she was put in jail to live the rest of her life in humiliation, yet a century later, a young writer goes in search of Katherine's diary in the hopes of finding out the whole story in an attempt to clear her name.

William E. Coles Jr., native to western Pennsylvania by spiritual adoption, has taught English with his wife, Janet, at the University of Pittsburgh. Author of many books and articles on the teaching of writing and literature, he has published two previous young-adult novels, Funnybone (with Stephen Schwandt, a Publishers Weekly Pick of the Lists) and Another Kind of Monday (an ALA Best Book for Young Adults).