Hell to Pay

At the outset of this violent, generic thriller from bestseller Staub, the third in a trilogy that began with Live to Tell and Scared to Death, a freak major earthquake hits Massachusetts, allowing an unnamed female convict to escape unscathed from the ruins of the Bridgebury Correctional Facility. The woman, taking inspiration from her Bible, starts a campaign of vengeance by shooting to death a wounded prison guard who once raped her. She quickly moves beyond crimes of opportunity to a careful strategic plan aimed at Lucy Walsh Cavalon, a pregnant computer network administrator hoping finally to carry a child to term. Lucy’s adversary, who once “had lived in a grand home whose marble bathrooms were stocked with fine European linens,” has it in for Lucy and her husband, Jeremy, who won a large chunk of the escaped convict’s assets in a damages settlement. Staub brings nothing new to the familiar psychotic-pursuing-a-vendetta plot line. (Oct.)