The Inmate

Mystery and thriller

Print length: 336 pagesPoisoned Pen Press, 2024

Description

Brooke Sullivan begins work as a nurse practitioner at a men’s maximum-security prison, where the rules demand strict boundaries and absolute confidentiality. One inmate makes those rules impossible to treat as routine: Shane Nelson, her former high-school sweetheart, is serving life for a series of grisly murders after Brooke’s testimony helped convict him. Their connection has already crossed lines her employers cannot know about, and Shane possesses intimate knowledge of a past Brooke wants buried. Confined corridors and mandatory encounters turn her new job into a psychological contest over memory, guilt, and control, as the story asks how securely anyone can separate a dangerous present from a hidden history.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.