As Catch Can

A jailbreak at the Green Haven Maximum Security Prison in Stormville, N.Y., leads to the escape of cop killer Eduard Vasquez and no end of grief for Jack ""Keeper"" Marconi, the prison warden. Marconi has to investigate the escape on the q.t. as his superiors are clearly setting him up for a fall. The prison guards who escorted Vasquez on a trip to the dentist are faking the injuries they allegedly endured in the escape; drugs are planted in Marconi's office; the escapee's girlfriend, Cassandra Wolf, appears in porno photos with Marconi's superiors, the same men with whom he survived the Attica prison riots 16 years earlier as an 18-year-old guard. Vasquez's trail leads to a small town in upstate New York where Cassandra is hiding out. When a major character dies, she and Marconi must go on the lam to clear themselves of the murder. In his impressive debut novel, Zandri writes strong prose that rarely strains for effect, and some of his scenes, particularly the Attica flashbacks, achieve a powerful hallucinatory horror. His characters aren't wholly original--like too many macho heroes, for instance, Marconi is a widower who likes his whiskey--but they add lots of color to a tough-minded, involving novel that deserves its promised sequel. (Jan.)