Slow Bleed
Trey R. Barker
Five Star, Sep 24 2014, $25.95
ISBN: 9781432829124
Now in her twenties, Jace Salome was
raised by Gramma at the older woman’s motel after her mother vanished. Nervously, she starts her first night as a
Deputy at the Zachary County Jail. At her initial meeting presided over by Sergeant
Dillon, Jace meets Deputy Rory Bogan.
While on her first shift in A Pod, Deputy Reynolds and inmate Thomas get
into a fight. By the time Jace arrives,
Thomas is dead.
The Texas Rangers investigate but find nothing
wrong though Jace feels this was a setup to get away with murdering a
prisoner. She and Rory make their own
unofficial inquiry only to find a very high frequency of inmate deaths at the
hands of correction officers. As she obtains
more information, Jace realizes if she continues to dig, she could become a prison
death statistic.
Slow Bleed is a tense dark law enforcement
thriller that spotlights good, bad and fence-straddling prison guards. The fence sitters especially add a
fascinating Typhoid Mary-like ends justify the means moral issue as they insist
they perform a public safety necessity by insuring deviants like pedophiles can
never torment a child again. Filled with
blood and gore, the naive but dedicated lead struggles between getting along by
ignoring what she observes and learns, or continue her dangerous probe. Not for those with a squeamish stomach, Trey
R. Barker provides his audience with a gritty Texas prison drama in which we
will want more Salome novels.
Harriet Klausner
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