The story begins with a seemingly well-planned prison breakout on the day of the annual softball competition between the inmates and the officers.

The families of the correctional officers are taken hostage from a bus and in exchange for their safety, all the prisoners from Pronghorn correctional facility are released.

Enter our main characters: Grace Slanter, warden; John Kradle, death row prisoner; Celine Osbourne, death row supervisor; and Trinity Parker, US Marshall.

Most of the prisoners are rounded up fairly quickly with the exception of Kradle, who maintains he did not kill his wife and child and wants to take this chance to seek out some old contacts and establish his innocence.

Parker takes a no-nonsense kick-head approach to the investigation, determined to find the cause of the breakout, restore order to the prison, and take some scalps I the process.

There is an inside person feeding the critical information to the outside world, and the hijackers, and initial thoughts are around possible terrorist links. Independently, Slanter and Osbourne figure out who the inside person is. They both have their reasons for wanting to tidy up the mess before the unwanted US Marshall solves the case.

A part of the hard-line approach by Parker, Osbourne is stood down from the prison and taking any part in the investigation. However, she stays on the trail to chase down Kradle (hence the title of the book). She wants to redeem her place, and in her view, return a guilty prisoner. You can guess where this might lead once Osbourne and Kradle connect.

If you like the genre of action/mystery/crime, this one is complex and will keep you reading until the last page.

No spoilers in this review — you have to read it to find out what happens at the end.

Mark Schier (Point Cook Chapter)