STEVE CARROLL WRITES

Cage Five is Going to   Break  (1970) by E. Richard Johnson The   most interesting thing about the short novel  Cage Five is Going to Break  is that its author, E. Richard Johnson,   wrote it while serving a 40- year prison sentence for his part in a robbery that   resulted in murder. He wrote nearly every word of his 11 published crime novels   from behind   bars.  Our main character here is Stacy Tate, a convicted bank   robber incarcerated in Murphy Prison. Stacy is masterminding a breakout that   involves several other inmates from his cell block along with his hooker   girlfriend, Mae, working on the outside. She has access to the money   from the   bank job that landed Stacy in prison and is using it and her body to influence   a susceptible prison guard.  Almost the entire book is set-up   as the reader is   kept in the dark about exactly how this break will occur. We are introduced to ...

Green River Rising (1994)   by Tim Willocks What if the warden of a huge Texas penitentiary were to go insane and not only incite a riot, but keep its existence hidden from governing authorities in an attempt to allow it to escalate and run its course in order to cleanse itself?  And what if an unjustly convicted man, who is set to be released the next day after the riot begins, suddenly finds himself trapped inside?  And what if that innocent man’s love interest is in the prison’s infirmary and no one knows she’s there as the worst criminal elements in that prison population do everything possible to break into that infirmary to kill its dying patients and have their way with her?  Green River Rising  is a genuine epic in every sense of the word. Despite a single setting and a palpable sense of claustrophobia, the intertwining stories of the inmates and how they each factor int...