Young prison officer Nicholas Glass is finding the stresses of the job increasingly hard to handle. Bullied and abused by inmates and colleagues alike, every day is getting longer than the one before. When a group of cons use outside help to threaten his wife and daughter, Glass agrees to help them out with a ‘favour’. But, as their threats escalate, and one favour leads to another, Glass grows ever closer to breaking point.
And when Glass breaks, he might just shatter…
Allan Guthrie specializes in tales of fractured men, and Glass might be his most striking yet, because the style of the story matches his internal struggles. This puts the reader in the shotgun seat as things get more and more twisted – except there is no seat belt or brakes on the car, and the oh shit handle just broke off in your hand.
The mental breakdown that we bear witness to is, above all else, fascinating. You not only get sucked into the story but you also HAVE to find out what will happen next.
When things can’t possibly get more tense, Guthrie manages to find new ways to up the stakes before finally diving so far down in the twisted rabbit hole of Glass’s memory that he gives readers the bends.
By the end of Slammer we will have seen Guthrie revisit in part a technique that he used in Three Way Split, but here it is refined and used to a greater effect. The result is that Slammer is a gripping psychological crime novel.
When we speak of those on the forefront of dark fiction; those whose work scares people at a fundamental level; and those whose work we are hard pressed to try to define and pigeon hole, but can’t, Guthrie’s name is near the top of the list, and Slammer proves why.
Top review. I adored that book and found really moving.