Pen Pals by Terry Marquardt — Book One of The Gamble Series

Pen Pals is Book One of The Gamble Series: An American Reckoning, written by Terry Marquardt. Now available on Amazon.

Two people met over poker. They robbed a bank. They ended up in separate federal prisons — and wrote each other every day until they found a way back. Told through more than a thousand real letters, court records, grand jury transcripts, and FBI files.

1976. Salt Lake City. An armed bank robbery. Two unlikely people. A federal judge under investigation handing down a thirty-year sentence. A women's rights activist filing case law from inside a prison cell. This happened. Every word of it.

The Gamble Series by Terry Marquardt

Pen Pals Book One — The Hand (Now Available on Amazon)
Pen Pals Book Two — The Flop (Coming Soon)
Pen Pals Book Three — The Play (Coming Soon)
Pen Pals Book Four — The Rake (Coming Soon)

Additional Works by Terry Marquardt

The Gamble: An American Reckoning
The Warden — Female Incarceration Through Time
Before the Gamble — The Marquardt Family
The Warden and the Robber — Power, Prison, and Redemption

About Terry Marquardt

Terry Marquardt is a narrative nonfiction writer whose work lives at the intersection of true crime, family history, and the American justice system. Her uncle Gary Marquardt and aunt Barbara Soper were arrested for armed bank robbery in 1976. Gary was sentenced to thirty years by a federal judge who was himself under investigation. Barbara fought the prison system from the inside, citing case law and winning the right to marry Gary while both were incarcerated in separate federal facilities. They wrote each other over a thousand letters. Terry spent twelve years turning those letters into a book. She lives in Spokane, Washington.

Buy Pen Pals on Amazon: amazon.com/dp/B0GSVG9LXV

An American Reckoning

The Gamble

A Body of Work by Terry Marquardt

The Gamble is not a book. It is a lens. Every story Terry Marquardt tells — true crime, family history, fiction, advocacy — is refracted through the same question: what does it cost to play, and who pays when the hand goes wrong.

By Terry Marquardt

Explore the Series About the Author

Pen Pals — Book One of The Gamble Series

♠ Pen Pals — The First Hand Dealt ♠

The Complete Series

Everything Under The Gamble

A body of work built on documents, letters, and institutional truth. Pen Pals is where it begins. The series has no fixed end.

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Primary Series

Pen Pals

Four books tracing love, crime, and consequence through the American federal system. The first hand in The Gamble.

IThe Hand — Book One
IIThe Flop — Book Two
IIIThe Play — Book Three
IVThe Rake — Book Four

Explore ♠

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Expanded Works

The Gamble Universe

Deeper explorations of the institutions, people, and forces at the heart of the series.

♣The Warden
♣Before the Gamble
♣The Warden and the Robber

Explore ♣

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Other Works

Beyond The Gamble

Memoir, fiction, and the subjects that drive the writing. The Gamble is a lens — these are what it reveals.

♦Love Re-Imaged
♦The Advocate & the Pussytoe Fields

Explore ♦

← Back to Home

Now Available — The First Hand

Pen Pals

Book One of The Gamble Series — An American Reckoning

This happened. Every word of it.

Told through more than a thousand real letters, court records, grand jury transcripts, and FBI files, Pen Pals reconstructs a story that had never been fully told — until now.

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Buy on Amazon Meet the People

The Complete Pen Pals Series

Four Books. One Story.

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Book One

The Hand

Now Available

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Book Two

The Flop

Coming Soon

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Book Three

The Play

Coming Soon

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Book Four

The Rake

Coming Soon

← Back to Home

The Complete Body of Work

♥ The Series

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Not crime. Not romance. Not prison. The Gamble is about how proximity to a case reshapes belief — and how two people in love accidentally exposed a national shift in American justice. Pen Pals is where it begins. The series has no fixed end.

Primary Series ♠

Pen Pals — Books I through IV

Four books tracing the arc from arrest through sentencing, incarceration, institutional resistance, and the broader national reckoning with how America punishes its people.

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Book One — The Hand

Now Available

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Book Two — The Flop

Coming Soon

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Book Three — The Play

Coming Soon

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Book Four — The Rake

Coming Soon

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Expanded Works ♣

The Gamble Universe

Deeper explorations of the institutions, people, and forces at the heart of the series.

The Warden

Female Incarceration Through Time

Before the Gamble

The Marquardt Family

The Warden and the Robber

Power, Prison, and Redemption

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Other Works ♦

Beyond The Gamble

Love Re-Imaged

Autobiography of Terry Marquardt

The Advocate and the Pussytoe Fields

Fiction Crime Thriller — A story of vengeance, child protection, and consequence.

← Back to Home

The Real Men and Women

♣ The People

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Behind every document, every letter, every court record — there were people. These are theirs.

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Gary Arlin Marquardt

The Gambler

Gary Marquardt was arrested in Salt Lake City in September 1976 on charges of armed bank robbery. Sentenced to thirty years by a federal judge who was himself under investigation, Gary served his sentence at McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary. His letters to Barbara — written every day — form the documentary spine of Pen Pals.

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Barbara Jean Soper

The Strategist

A women's rights activist and legal strategist, Barbara Soper was arrested alongside Gary in 1976. From inside Purdy Treatment Center for Women, she filed case law, challenged the system, and won the right to marry Gary while both were incarcerated in separate federal facilities. She wrote more than a thousand letters. She won.

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Sue Clark

The Warden

Sue Clark was appointed Superintendent of Purdy Treatment Center for Women in 1975 — one of the first women to hold such a position in Washington State. Her approach to female incarceration was unconventional, progressive, and ahead of its time. Her story is central to the expanded works of The Gamble Series.

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The Marquardts

The Family

The Marquardt family of Butte, Montana and the Pacific Northwest carries decades of stories — of loyalty, consequence, and the weight of a name. Their history forms the foundation of Before the Gamble, tracing the family across generations before the events of Pen Pals.

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The Issues That Drive the Work

♦ Advocacy

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The Gamble Series is not just a story. It is a document of systems — what they do to people, how they change over time, and what happens when ordinary human beings are caught inside them at the wrong moment.

Sentencing Reform ♠

Judicial Discretion & Sentencing Reform

In 1976, federal judges still had near-total discretion in sentencing. The same crime could earn vastly different outcomes depending on the judge, the jurisdiction, and the defendant. Gary Marquardt was sentenced to thirty years by a judge who was himself under federal investigation for corruption.

Within a decade, that discretion would be largely eliminated. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 introduced mandatory guidelines that removed much of the human judgment from the courtroom.

The Gamble Series documents this transition from the inside out.

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Female Incarceration ♣

Women Inside the System

Barbara Soper's experience at Purdy Treatment Center for Women reveals a side of incarceration rarely examined — women navigating a system designed primarily for men, finding agency inside containment, and building resistance through legal strategy rather than confrontation.

The expansion of female incarceration in the decades following is one of the most underreported stories in American criminal justice history. The Gamble Series traces it from one woman's letters outward.

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Child Protection ♥

The Advocate & Child Abuse

Terry Marquardt's fiction work, The Advocate and the Pussytoe Fields, confronts child abuse directly — through the lens of a crime thriller that asks hard questions about vengeance, justice, and what the system fails to do for its most vulnerable.

Child protection is not peripheral to this body of work. It is central to it.

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Media & Press

♠ News & Press

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Media coverage, interviews, and press mentions for The Gamble Series and Terry Marquardt.

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Press Coverage Coming Soon

As The Gamble Series gains coverage, articles, interviews, and press mentions will appear here.

For media inquiries: terry@thegamble.info

← Back to Home

About the Author ♣

Terry Marquardt

Terry Marquardt is a narrative nonfiction writer whose work lives at the intersection of true crime, family history, and the American justice system.

Her uncle Gary Marquardt and aunt Barbara Soper were arrested for armed bank robbery in 1976. Gary was sentenced to thirty years by a federal judge who was himself under investigation. Barbara — a women's rights activist and legal strategist — fought the prison system from the inside, citing case law and winning the right to marry Gary while both were incarcerated in separate federal facilities.

They wrote each other over a thousand letters. Terry spent twelve years turning those letters into a book — working from FBI records, court documents, grand jury transcripts, and period newspaper reporting to reconstruct a story that had never been fully told.

She lives in Spokane, Washington. The Gamble is a body of work with no fixed end.

terry@thegamble.info

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