Ditmarsh Penitentiary holds many secrets within its walls. Like any maximum security prison, it has seen every breed of guilt, regret, hatred, or malevolence pass through its cells. The inmates aren't the only ones who harbor these emotions. Surrounded by prisoners and given absolute authority, the guards often slip across the divide from law enforcement to criminality. Many do, and their plots with inmates can become so intertwined and far-reaching that to try to stop them would destroy the prison entirely.

Officer Kali Williams is trying to do just that. A young inmate named Joshua claims that another prisoner has drawn an elaborate comicbook that holds a guide to another, criminal dimension of Ditmarsh, one that she had only caught glimpses of before. At first Kali can't take it seriously. A comicbook? But then the artist-inmate disappears completely. As she retraces his steps, she enters a labyrinthine world that exists only inside the prison, but that holds as many layers and connections as the wider world beyond.

Intense and arresting, THE FOUR STAGES OF CRUELTY is a powerful debut novel of literary suspense for fans of Umberto Eco and Carlos Ruiz Zafon.