Hacksaw

Sentenced to a Virginia chain gang at age 17, Jones, nicknamed ""Hacksaw,'' has spent his adult life as a prisoner or a fugitive. His greatest talent is as an escape artist, an ability he has demonstrated 14 times in 20 years. His account of his early escapes are almost unbearably suspenseful, but eventually the reader becomes inured to the tension and Jones's later efforts assume an automatic quality. Further, he is not given to introspection, so there are no efforts to analyze why arrests for speeding and drunk driving or visits to family members invariably led to his recapture. Probably the book's most important contribution is to expose the brutality of the prison system, especially as practiced on chain gangs. Jones, who is now serving time in Illinois, ends his story with a plea for rehabilitation programs for convicts. (May)