Ashes, Ashes

This lackluster thriller from Atkins (The Cadaver's Ball) strains reader credulity to the breaking point. Attractive forensic psychiatrist Barrett Conyors receives an emergency call on the way to her Manhattan gynecologist to terminate the pregnancy caused by the rapist who killed her husband. She must act immediately to try to block a judge's decision to transfer four extremely dangerous murderers from a maximum security prison in Stormville, N.Y., to a less secure facility in Croton. When the transfer goes through, Richard Glash, the deadliest of the inmates, escapes and gets his hands on some bubonic plague. In addition, Glash takes two hostages, Conyors and Carla Phelps, her legal adversary (and a former patient she'd diagnosed as bipolar), who desperately try to stop his plan to unleash the Black Death on New York City. Unconvincing actions sequences undercut the suspense.