Breakout

April 23, 2021

DEBUT Former cop Jack Constantine hunted down the three men who had murdered his pregnant wife in a botched robbery three years ago; Jack killed one of them before being wounded and arrested by his partner. Jack is now in a maximum security prison in Florida, in the path of a double hurricane. Two storms from his Jack's past are converging as well: the two surviving men responsible for his wife's murder have been relocated to his prison complex for the duration of the storm; and he has a run-in with a local crime boss, Malcolm Kincaid, whom Jack framed for arrest four years earlier. As the storms approach, the corrections officers flee the prison and open the gates. The result is violent chaos. Jack seeks his revenge, all the while avoiding Kincaid, the flooding and crumbling of the prison complex, gang wars, and a roving serial killer with an army of murderous acolytes. Jack partners with his prison buddy Felix, and Kiera Sawyer, a corrections officer accidentally left behind by her colleagues on this, her first day on the job. VERDICT The combination of vengeance quest and disaster epic make for a compelling and adrenaline-filled thriller. TV and game writer Herron's debut stands apart with its strong characterization and assured pacing, though at times the violence does skew toward the gratuitous.--Jon Jeffryes, Grand Valley State University, MI

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