The Author
About the Author
A story inherited twice
Hundred Cents on the Dollar was written by a descendant of the Malone family, an attorney and researcher. He inherited the story twice: first as family lore passed down at the dinner table, and later as a box of documents no one had ever reconciled.
His grandmother, Ethelee Malone Carlson, spent fifty years tracing the family genealogy. He spent years pulling the federal record himself, from the clemency file to the National Archives branches in Chicago and Kansas City, and set the two accounts side by side.
He built it like a case file
Trained in the law, he assembled the book the way he would assemble a file: every fact sourced, every conflict between the sources flagged rather than smoothed over, and no thumb on the scale. He does not tell you whether his ancestor was guilty. He lays out the record and steps back, leaving the last seat in the jury box open for you.