Framed in Monte Carlo: Why I Spent Eight Years in Prison for a Murder I Did Not Commit

Maher, along with Bill Hayes (The Original Wild Ones) and Jennifer Thomas (Butterfly Tears), tells a captivating story of wrongful conviction. A former Green Beret, Maher was hired as a nurse and bodyguard by billionaire banker Edmond Safra, who had Parkinson’s disease and lived in Monte Carlo in a highly secured residence. In 1999, a fire broke out, killing Safra and another nurse. Maher became the prime suspect, but he maintained that two masked intruders had broken in, beating and stabbing him. Nevertheless, police demanded that he sign a document written in French—his confession. Maher was convicted of murder and given a 10-year sentence; after eight years (which included one short-lived escape), he was freed when the judge who presided over his trial declared the proceedings a sham. Maher’s compelling work reads like a mystery novel full of twists and turns; the author also describes how foreigners are often at a disadvantage when it comes to navigating a justice system with which they may be unfamiliar.