The Last Mile

The Last Mile (2016), a work of suspense fiction by David Baldacci, follows Melvin Mars, a convicted murderer who anticipates his execution on death row after being convicted of killing his parents. Just before his execution date, his judgment is suspended when a different man confesses to the double murder. FBI detective Amos Decker reaches out to Mars, revealing a personal interest in the case because he was once accused of the exact same crime before a suspect came forward. While the veracity of either confessor is dubious, Decker and Mars work to obtain Mars’s exoneration. Baldacci’s novel utilizes gaps in memory to introduce ambiguity behind its characters’ possible moral transgressions, suspending judgment about their actions, and connecting their cases to more serious ones operating subtly and evading impunity in the story’s background.

As the novel begins, Mars awaits his execution. Twenty years earlier, he was a young adult and aspiring football star, seemingly on the fast track to the NFL. His world came crashing down when he found himself at the center of the elaborately orchestrated murder of his parents, which, even in the present day, seems to have had no clear motivation behind it. Having given up on obtaining his exoneration, he resigns himself to his fate.

Meanwhile, Amos Decker begins his new career as a cold case detective for the FBI. He meets with a team of three other detectives, and they research their different possible cases and leads. He happens upon Mars’s case and is struck by the uncanny resemblance it has to his own life. He decides to become the leader of the detective team in order to put their energy towards Mars’ case first. A brilliant debater, despite his inexperience on the force, he defeats a member of his team, Agent Milligan, who competes for the leadership. The task force then begins to investigate the strange, conveniently timed murder confession of Charles Montgomery, who had kept silent for decades.



Because Mars is about to be executed, the team has no trouble convincing him to be interviewed and to divulge his life story. He tells them about his wife and son, and his parents, Lucinda and Roy Mars, who owned a pawnshop and supplemented their income with side jobs. He explains that he was an introvert, and had minimal contact with other people when he was outside jail. He also insists that he had no hand in the murder, and has a feeling that he was framed by his parents; however, he lacks any concrete evidence to fully convince the detectives.

The team next travels to the home of Regina, Montgomery's wife. Decker grows suspicious when he notices extremely expensive objects in her home that seem unaffordable for someone with her economic status. He later calculates that he saw over fifty thousand dollars worth of luxury goods during the visit. Then, Decker talks to Timmy, Regina’s son. Timmy divulges that he and Regina are on an insurance policy that will disburse a large amount of money when Montgomery is executed. The team follows this lead, and realizes that Montgomery has been bribed by an unknown person to lie about committing the murder. Regina consented to corroborate Montgomery’s story to get the cash payout for her and Timmy. After she started prematurely spending it on frivolous items, her behavior threatened to expose the plot, leading to her murder in the middle of the investigation.

Meanwhile, Mars goes from becoming pardoned to having his pardon reversed. When Montgomery admits to have lied, the police assume Mars has to be guilty. In a final twist, it is revealed that Roy, Mars’ father, faked his death upon learning that his wife had a terminal illness. Roy pretended to care for his son, but only ever wanted to set him up to take a cut of his NFL earnings. In Mars’s childhood, as he approached football fame, Roy had conspired with a racist police chief, a politician, and a businessman to make sure that Mars preemptively signed away 30 percent of his earnings to his father before Roy faked his death, also leveraging the death of his wife to force the NFL to pay him out while Mars languished in prison.



As Decker, Mars, and the rest of the detective team collaborate to exonerate him and untangle the ongoing machinations of a criminal mastermind, they learn that sometimes, even family can’t be trusted. Mars’ realization about his father’s deceit turns his world upside down, but with the help of Decker and his detective team, they prove his innocence and gain his freedom. Though its conclusion leaves many details and rich inner lives of its characters unexplained, The Last Mile suggests that truth prevails in the end if people work hard enough to find it.