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The Inmate

Pages
388
Published
2022
Language
English

Synopsis

After nearly a decade away, Brooke Sullivan returns to her hometown and starts work as a nurse practitioner at a men’s maximum-security prison.

She tells herself it’s just a job — but one of the inmates serving a life sentence for a string of brutal murders is Shane Nelson, her high-school boyfriend, whose conviction rests in part on Brooke’s own testimony. None of her new colleagues know their history.

When she’s forced to treat Shane’s injuries, the careful distance she’s kept for years collapses, and he insists, as he always has, that he is innocent and the real killer is someone Brooke has known all along.

Moving between their teenage past and her uneasy present, the novel keeps the reader guessing about who is lying and what Brooke saw, building to the kind of late reversal that recasts everything before it.

How it reads

  • Writing
    2.0
  • Impact
    1.0
  • Characters
    1.0
  • Plot
    1.0
  • Atmosphere
    3.0
Prose complexity 3/10
Content warnings (6)
ViolenceGraphic ViolenceGun ViolenceDeath Of A ParentAbuseSubstance Abuse

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