Stolen Time is the memoir of Sonia `Sunny` Jacobs, a former death row inmate in Florida who spent 17 years in prison wrongfully convicted of the murder of twoFlorida highway patrol police officers.

In 1976 Sunny Jacobs and her partner Jesse Trafero fled the scene with their two young children, after Trafero`s associate Walter Rhodes shot and killed two police officers.

Later Jacobs and Trafero would be convicted of the crime aided by Walter Rhodes`s testimony and sentenced to death. Sunny Jacobs was 28 years old at the time and the first woman to be handed the death penalty since it was re-enacted in the state of Florida.

The book jumps back and forth in the beginning with present day Sunny being transported to a hastily put together death row cell for the first female inmate, and a parallel narrative recounting the story of how she got into this predicament.

Sunny was a true, rebellious flower child as is evident from the letters she exchanged with Jesse while he was on death row elsewhere in Florida.

It is also clear that Jacobs had nothing to do with the shootings other than being present at the scene of the crime and later fleeing with Trafero and Rhodes. And while Trafero did not participate in the shooting, the gun used was in his possession at the time of arrest. Even though Jacobs didn`t fire a single shot, she spent five years in solitary confinement on death row and 12 years in prison.

During this time she lost all contact with her children, both her parents died and she bore the loss of Jesse Trafero as a result of a botched execution.

This is a good read, especially if you want an insight of the machinations and colossal shortcomings of the United States legal, judicial and penal system as well as penitentiary life. Sunny Jacobs might not have been convicted if the
legal and judicial system had not been so skewed to favour the prosecution.

As it happened the defense provided to Jacobs and her partner was insufficient and incapable of providing them with the legal recourse they deserved. In the end this cost Trafero his life and Jacobs her freedom. In fact, Jesse Trafero`s horrific end became the guiding light for anti-death penalty crusaders.

The fact that Jacobs was released only two years after his execution underlines the tragedy of the judicial failures.

The book meanders along unremarkably with Jacobs writings from her days behind bars and the couple`s touching, yet raw correspondence reproduced verbatim and an account of Jacobs` prison life.

While the first half of the book details Jacobs` harrowing stay in solitary confinement on death row in a cell no wider than the length of her two arms, the rest gives details of her life in general prison as a `lifer`.

The number of characters that Jacobs describes in minute, if abruptly truncated detail is difficult to keep count of. Jacobs shows remarkable resilience and a surprisingly positive attitude throughout her 17 years long stay in prison.

Apart from one inmate, Jacobs did not have anything negative to say about the myriad characters that show up through the course of the book. This is no doubt a result of religious affiliations ranging from her Judaic roots to strong Zen and Buddhist influences.

One would expect that with the subject at hand, the book will read more like a John Grisham novel or a sensationalised account similar to the TV series Prison Break.

However the memoir leaves one feeling a little bewildered about the reaction it merits. With so many formulaic procedural TV series to pique our curiosity of forensics, criminal trials and prison life, Stolen Time is in some ways an emotional letdown.

It is most certainly not a literary masterpiece, indeed the narrative tone is very personal and therefore somewhat unpolished.

I would like to think that the author was assisted by a ghost writer but chose to keep true to her own voice.

The book is interspersed with personal reflections, prison anecdotes and letters exchanged between Jacobs and her partner Jesse Tafero. The letters, brimming with raw emotion and sensuality, form the backbone of the narrative through its most tedious parts and bring some structure to the otherwise unanchored storyline.

The immense human tragedy is barely perceptible as the mundanity of everyday prison life anecdotes overshadows it. One fails to find an emotional hook throughout the book.

Again I would like to give Jacobs the benefit of doubt. Having survived a nightmare for 17 years, human nature dictates that one needs to become more than a little emotionally detached in order to survive intact.

Although I sympathise with the author and her children and there were moments of sadness and horror especially at Jesse Tafero`s barbaric execution, the book as a whole left me decidedly underwhelmed.

Having said that, the tragedy that is Sunny Jacobs`s life cannot be disregarded. The story is the basis for a highly acclaimed off-Broadway play called The Exonerated with Susan Sarondon, Vanessa Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave, amongst others, playing Sunny Jacobs on stage.

Do look out for a celluloid version of the book that is sure to come out in the next couple of years. This is the stuff Oscar dreams are made of, if not the Pulitzer Prize.

Stolen Time
By Sunny Jacobs
Transworld Publishers, London
ISBN 978-0-553-81828-4
570pp. Rs545