Shot Caller

In the second installment of Jen J. Danna’s atmospheric crime fiction series featuring a hostage negotiator and her law enforcement family, NYPD detective Gemma Capello is called to Rikers Island, where a prison riot threatens to become a bloodbath...

NYPD detective Gemma Capello is called to Rikers Island, where a prison riot threatens to become a bloodbath . . .

On Rikers Island, tensions always run high, especially in the Enhanced Supervision Housing unit. The ESH is home to Rikers’ most dangerous offenders, many of them members of rival street gangs. When Gemma Capello and her team get word of an uprising at the ESH, they know how much is at stake. It’s also the first case she and Detective Sean Logan have worked together since a siege at City Hall.

Built to prevent escape, prisons are also especially difficult to invade—a last resort for Gemma. She begins negotiating with Kill Switch, a young, aggressive member of the Filero Kings gang and the inmates’ spokesman. She can tell the stress level is escalating inside. That may give her team some advantages, but it soon leads to a brutal act of retribution—and threats of more to come. With the body count rising and her team arguing about how to proceed, the only certainty is that the next misstep may be a fatal one . . .

Jen J. Danna is the acclaimed author two mystery and suspense series written with Ann Vanderlaan: The Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mystery Series and the F.B.I. K-9 Novels, published under the pseudonym Sara Driscoll. The NYPD Negotiator series marks her solo writing debut. Danna is also a scientist specializing in infectious diseases who works as part of a dynamic research group at a cutting-edge Canadian university. A member of Crime Writers of Canada, she lives with her family near Toronto and can be found online at JenJDanna.com.