"Gregg Olsen's work is absolutely top notch, masterful. With [Cruel Deception], Gregg takes his rightful place among crime masters: Ann Rule, Jack Olsen, Joseph Wambaugh, and Joe McGinniss."
– Dennis McDougal, author of In the Best of Families and Whatever Mother Says

"Not only is [Cruel Deception] a riveting, often horrifying book, it is an important book, a much needed addition to the canon of serious criminal justice literature."
– Joseph Bosco, author of Blood Will Tell and A Problem of Evidence: How the Prosecution Freed O.J. Simpson

Author's Note:

he original subtitle of this book was A Mother, a Child, a Murder but just as the book was going to the printer -- disaster struck. Convicted of murder, Tanya Reid beat the odds and won her appeal. Her murder conviction overturned. She was released from prison and went home to Dumas, Texas where she took a job at McDonalds. She was no longer a murderer, but a fast-food worker. The book title had to be changed and some of the more damaging things about her were deleted from the book. It was now: Mockingbird: A Mother, a Child, a Tragedy.

About a year later Tanya once again before a jury, this time a change of venue brought her to a courtroom in Lubbock. Though she had an opportunity to take a plea and serve less than ten years, she opted to roll the dice one more time. She had great hopes that this time a jury would see that she was a good mother and would never have harmed her children. The jury didn't see it that way.