The Eight Day

This is an amazing WHO-DONE-IT?? A definite ''can-not-put-down'' thriller!!

At the turn of the century, an Illinois man is sentenced to death for the murder of a close friend, but escapes to South America to build a new world for himself and his family.

In 1962 and 1963, Thornton Wilder spent twenty months in hibernation, away from family and friends, in the town of Douglas, Arizona. While there, he launched The Eighth Day, a tale set in a mining town in southern Illinois about two families blasted apart by the apparent murder of one father by the other. The miraculous escape of the accused killer, John Ashley, on the eve of his execution and his flight to freedom triggers a powerful story tracing the fate of his, and the victim’s, wife and children.

At once a murder mystery and a philosophical story, The Eighth Day is a “suspenseful & deeply moving” (front cover The New York Times) work of classic stature that has been hailed as a great American epic.

Synopsis from Open Library.