Interesting choice for a novel. I went to download the ebook because of this! I read the whole passage and frankly the style is rather colloquial. Sentence 1: A regular bear for the death-penalty was George Dunahy. American style writing at play here. Generally the Brits would not write like this. :D Another example sentence: He's a regular bear in the morning (American English) Bears usually aren't good news. They're fierce, determined and territorial. The sample sentence gives us an idea that the guy is grouchy, bad tempered and fierce in the morning. Thus the sentence in the novel implies that George Dunahy possesses similar characteristics. [hard-headed, fiercely advocating the death penalty] Sentence 2: Hadley and Stammas came out of that one okay - they were old hands at keeping their asses covered - but Dunahy took a walk. So the passage mentioned how George Dunahy was fired from the job in 1953. He was running a discount auto-repair service down in the prison garage and splitting the profits with Byron Hadley and Greg Stammas. So Hadley and Stammas got away without any penalty. [No punishment, no loss of job etc Reason>> "Old hands at keeping their asses covered" ] Whereas, Dunaby took a walk>> meaning he was fired and he left. Hope this helps! :D

bear for the death penalty" is just adding to the previous sentence ; it means he REALLY wants Maine to allow it's prisoners to be executed. He is very pro death penalty

To be honest I don't completely understand the first sentence. By the context, I assume it means that he was an easy target for the death penalty. That is, people really want to get him put to death. Hopefully someone else will be able to shed more light on this. The second sentence means that Hadley and Stammas escaped the situation with little or no repercussion (came out of that okay) because they were very good at (they were old hands at) keeping themselves safe in these types of situations (covering their asses) but Dunahy was caught/went to prison (took a walk).