In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also featured an article about a botched armed robbery in which a police officer had been killed. Two of the suspects had gone on the run. One was named Wes Moore. After following the case to its conclusion, Wes Moore wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter asked the questions that had been haunting him- who are you? How did this happen? Through dozens of letters and prison visits, over the course of years, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own. Told in alternating dramatic narratives, The Other Wes Moore takes readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, and sheds a powerful light on modern America.
