Prisoner – Ross Greenwood
A shocking thriller inspired by the true stories of a male prison officer in a women’s prison…
Prison Officer Jim Dalton works on the male side of HMP Peterborough. It’s a dangerous place, fuelled by testosterone-driven violence, but he has the prisoners’ respect. When Dalton is transferred to the female side of the prison, his next shift is so easy he can’t believe that the officers over there get paid the same wages. He sleeps well for the first time in years.
Billie hasn’t had it easy in life, and she has earned the nickname Damage because she has been known to cause some! Ending up in prison might have been inevitable, but Billie hasn’t given up on her dreams yet. If there’s a way to get out of prison faster, she’s going to find it.
When Dalton is assigned to the young offenders’ wing, dealing with female prisoners no longer seems so simple, and in Billie he fears he may have met his match. As Billie starts to turn the screw, Dalton faces losing everything…
My thanks to Rachel at Rachel’s Random Resources for the opportunity to join the blog tour.
HMP Peterborough is unusual in that it has a male wing and a female wing. Author Ross Greenwood has drawn on personal experiences when writing Prisoner – the story of Prison Officer Jim Dalton. Dalton is an experienced Officer who has worked the male side of the prison for a number of years. He works long, challenging shifts and takes all the overtime available as his family badly need the money.
At home Dalton’s personal life is a mess. His wife is struggling badly to cope with their two young children and the constant financial pressures are making things difficult. As Dalton is working as many hours as he can at the prison he is not able to give his wife the support she needs at home and this only serves to put further strain on their relationship.
Although his job at the prison is challenging Dalton understands how the place works and knows how to treat prisoners and read the moods and tensions. But his familiarity with the role is about to change when a family member is sent to the prison and put under Dalton’s care. This is far from the ideal situation so Dalton is offered the opportunity to work on the young offenders wing on the female side of the prison. Now there are lots of new challenges to be faced and Dalton is going to find that the females may be more dangerous than the male prisoners.
Initially his new duties appear easy – a roar from him (a large angry man) was sufficient to quell a fight between two of the prisoners. But he soon learns that the girls under his care have lacked or feared father figures and while he may intimidate some of them, others will be drawn to him and want to earn his good favour.
As with any group there are dominent personalities and Dalton finds the most dominant to be Billie. She has had a challenging background but seems smart, sassy and full of confidence. Dalton is warned to be careful of getting too attached to Billie but these warnings may not be sufficient and any mistakes he makes could really create big problems, both inside the prison and outside.
I thoroughly enjoyed Prisoner and I put this entirely down to the detail brought by the author. It was clear Ross Greenwood had experienced working in a prison through the detail he brings to scenes and the situations he descibes. Interactions between the prisoners felt tense and edgy and as I reader I felt the wrong word at the wrong time by any of the characters could kick off a major incident. Dalton doesn’t come across as a saint and you can see mistakes he makes as they happen and long before he reaslises himself that he is creating a problem. This leaves you anticipating a crisis and you almost want to stop him and pull him back from digging a deeper hole for himself.
There is an excellent drama about Prisoner and reading about the various girls on the young offenders wing opens your eyes to a world many of us will not have known or want to experience first hand.
Not many books set in prisons so it was interesting to be reading something which felt new – I really enjoyed it.
Prisoner is published by Boldwood Books and is available in digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08R1FGTL1/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0