a small town

3 stars

This is a tense mystery/thriller with an original premise.

A federal prison is built near a small town. After it was converted from a minimum security to a maximum security prison, twelve inmates orchestrate a prison break, releasing over 1000 prisoners into the small town. They rape, murder, burn and pillage the town, leaving heart ache and destruction in its wake. While all of the regular prisoners are quickly captured, after two years the 12 inmates that planned the prison break are still at large. The mayor calls in local cop Leah Hawkins and places her on sabbatical to travel the country and learn advance police practices. Her true mission, however, is to hunt down the 12 and kill them.

This book started out very promising. It was tense and riveting. The premise was original and interesting. The writing style was easy and accessible. Leah is clearly very capable (unbelievably so) and it was fascinating to read how she hunted the 12 down and prepared to kill them. After awhile, however, the story started to drag, and an odd twist in the middle didn’t make any sense. Overall, however, I still enjoyed reading the book.