The Ride: A Shocking Murder and a Bereaved Father’s Journey from Rage to Redemption is a new book by Brian MacQuarrie that explores a par­en­t’s grief and sub­se­quent trans­for­ma­tion through the sto­ry of Robert Curley in Massachusetts. Curley’s 10-year-old son, Jeffrey, was a vic­tim of abduc­tion and mur­der in 1997. The mur­der shocked and out­raged the com­mu­ni­ty of East Cambridge out­side of Boston. MacQuarrie explores the father’s evo­lu­tion ​“from grief to anger to activism against preda­tors,” and from being an out­raged father demand­ing the death penal­ty for his son’s mur­der­er to an out­spo­ken crit­ic of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Delving deep­er into the issue, the author looks at the strug­gle of Massachusetts res­i­dents as they decide whether to rein­state cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Senator John Kerry calls the book, a ​“com­pelling and deeply moving…story of Bob Curley’s jour­ney to hell and back.” Sister Helen Prejean said ​“Robert Curley’s rad­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion is a les­son for us all.”

The book may be pur­chased here and at major book­stores. MacQuarrie has been a reporter at the Boston Globe for 20 years. (B. MacQuarrie, ​“The Ride: A Shocking Murder and a Bereaved Father’s Journey from Rage to Redemption,” Da Capo Press, 2009). See Books and Victims.

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