I first met John Temple about four years ago, when his first book, Deadhouse: Life In a Coroner's Office, landed on my desk at the Times West Virginian. It chronicled the infamous Allegheny County Coroner's Office in Pittsburgh in a style of journalism that was new to me, called narrative journalism (or sometimes, immersion journalism).

It's nonfiction that reads -- if you do it right -- like a novel. I loved Deadhouse and a few days later, sat in his office (one that was just down the hall from where mine would be three years later) at WVU talking with him about it.

When I started grad school, John served on the committee that supervised my Where Doubt Remains project. He taught me the difference between reporting and advocacy, something I'm still getting better at.

All that to say, his second book, The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates, is officially out today. Like Deadhouse, it's in a narrative form and it's about "how an idealistic legal genius and his diverse band of investigators and fellow attorneys fought to overturn a client's final sentence."