Smoke Screen: My Fugitive Dad

Seven years ago, journalist Justine van der Leun received a letter that would change her life. The sender was a woman named Kwaneta Harris, who was incarcerated at a prison in Texas. Kwaneta had an incredible story—one that, over time, she began to tell Justine.

Justine wanted to know more, and began to report deeply. Kwaneta’s story turned out to be more complicated, tangled, and murky than Justine could have ever imagined.

Bad checks are cashed. Fibs turn into lies turn into scams. A mysterious man wrapped in bandages signs binding legal documents. At one point, a young mother walks into a courthouse in Dallas and confesses to a murder she did not commit. None of it is real, or maybe all of it is. And somehow at every twist, behind every bizarre story, Justine kept finding her way back to one person: Kwaneta.

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For more of Justine’s work, read Unreasonable Women, which follows three women who have been punished for defending themselves. The result of seven years of reporting inside U.S. prisons, it's a gripping, urgent look at how survivors are criminalized, called "required reading for anyone who cares about women and justice," by Bookpage, "remarkable... riveting," by Kirkus, and "true crime at its finest," by Booklist. Available now on Amazon or Bookshop.org.

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