Adam Colclough lives and works in the West Midlands, he writes regularly for a number of websites, one day he will get round to writing a book for someone else to review.
Prison is a tough place for an ex-cop, something Jack Constantine learns as he serves a life sentence in Ravenhill, a brutal supermax penitentiary in Florida. Things are about to get a whole lot tougher as a once-in-a-century storm smashes into the state.
When the guards abandon their posts, after opening the cell doors, the prison descends into anarchy. Working with Kiera Sawyer, a rookie correctional officer left behind by her colleagues, Constantine must battle rising flood waters and fellow inmates with scores to settle and nothing to lose to find a way out.
This novel is a chilling dive into the brutal world of the US penal system, a dystopia where the strong might make it to the end of the day if they're lucky while the weak haven't got a hope. Herron has a well-honed knack of dropping his characters into deadly situations from which escape looks all but impossible; then somehow getting them out anyway.
This is good solid thriller fare, in common with the best writers in the genre, however he goes that little bit further. He uses them to examine serious issues such as how much basic humanity an individual can retain in a brutal environment, and the way the desire for vengeance can eat someone up from the inside.
This is an assured book from an author who illustrates the promise of becoming a major player in waiting.
