From Publishers Weekly
When Timothy Driver, who's serving life without parole in Meza Azul, America's most escape-proof prison, seizes control of the place and demands that Seattle true-crime writer Frank Corso come to Arizona to negotiate for the lives of 163 hostages, most sensible people would see it as an offer they can refuse—but not Corso, who's written a book about Driver. Ford seems so intent on separating his suspense novels about Corso (this is the fifth, after 2004's
Red Tide) from his lighter series about Seattle PI Leo Waterman that he darkens the environment and ups the danger ante to a grippingly readable but somewhat less-than-reasonable level. True, Corso does make a point of reassuring a doubtful Coast Guard officer sent to tell him about the demand, "Driver doesn't want to kill me. He wants to make sure his story gets told," but the officer (and the reader) don't believe that for a minute—especially when we know that Driver's accomplice in the takeover is a brutal biker, Cutter Kehoe. Driver and Kehoe are frighteningly fascinating in their actions and thoughts, and there's also a touchingly believable reality-show TV star, Melanie Harris, who sees the story as a way to boost her sagging ratings.
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Book Description
The accolades keep rolling in for G.M. Ford, whose gritty, explosive, lightning-fast brand of thriller has placed him in the upper ranks of contemporary crime fiction authors. Now, in his most relentlessly exciting novel to date, Ford's dark and complex protagonist, Frank Corso, finds himself drawn into a bizarre carnival of blood and death in the last place any sane person would willingly go ...
No Man's Land
Arizona's Meza Azul penitentiary is the pride of the state's newly privatized penal system -- a modern technological wonder, unassailable and inescapable, built to hold the worst of the worst. Yet, inconceivably, one prisoner has managed to breach the foolproof security, set loose the other inmates, and take control of the facility -- holding more than one hundred guards and workers hostage. And one hostage will die every six hours until Timothy Driver gets what he wants: Frank Corso.
A rogue journalist and confirmed lone wolf, Corso wrote a bestselling book about the former U.S. Navy submarine commander who was convicted of slaughtering his wife and her lover in a jealous fury. Now, unwilling to be responsible for the death of innocents, Corso allows himself to be delivered into the bowels of Meza Azul -- and into the hands of a crazed hero turned criminal.
But Captain Driver wants more than the ear of a once-sympathetic writer who will tell his final story tough and truthfully. Accompanied by a cold-blooded hayseed murder machine named "Cutter" Kehoe, and with Corso in tow, Driver pulls off a brilliant and undetected escape, right under the noses of armed government troops as they storm the captured prison. Suddenly a helpless spectator along for the ride on a maniacal cross-country killing spree -- with a tragic and beautiful TV journalist doggedly pursuing the story, heading inexorably into harm's way -- Corso finds himself in no man's land.
If he's lucky, Frank Corso may get one slim chance to escape the clutches of a psychopathic duo determined to go out in a blaze of blood and terror. But if he's not, his own story -- and too many others -- will end abruptly and brutally.
