Jess wakes up in hospital to find that she has been in a fire and she is disfigured. Then she is shocked to be charged with starting the fire and causing the death of a young boy.  She has been a drug addict and she accepts the charge even though she has amnesia and can’t remember what happened. She does not fight the charge so she ends in in a women’s prison, Fellside. This is a private prison in the UK, where some of the nastiest inmates are in control of what happens inside, and prison officers and doctors are in league with the prisoners running drugs. Jess finds herself at the mercy of these prisoners and frequently gets beaten up. But precisely because she has nothing left to lose and she is hardly able to follow instructions, she is not very cooperative with them, and the whole corrupt system starts to fail. Her tenacious lawyer follows up on her case and uncovers evidence that her conviction was based on false testimony. All this becomes clear early on in the story, or from reading the description on the back of the book. The main suspense is who will survive the violent turmoil that will inevitably precede the collapse of the drug ring. It’s a grim story, full of pain and cruelty, and there’s no guarantee of a happy ending. Jess is an interesting character, even if she is sad and disempowered. It isn’t easy to warm to her even though she has so much misfortune. It’s a thought-provoking book that addresses the problems of private prisons, the insanity defense and what it means to be fit to be punished, and the endemic corruption of prisons. The writing is perfectly adequate, if rather stilted. Fellside is worth trying out, and very consistent in its tone. The unabridged audiobook performed by Finty Williams is a bit flat and low in energy, but this does help to tone down the more horrific aspects of the story.

© 2016 Christian Perring

Christian Perring lives in New York and is an APPA certified philosophicalcounselor.