Synopsis: "In the near-future, the U.S. federal government turns over the remaining management of its over-burdened prison system to private enterprise. In a last-ditch effort to maintain solvency, states follow suit, and a tax-weary society goes along with the plan. Jack Luskey is a down-on-his-luck Baltimore businessman-physicist whose bad luck multiplies itself when a routine visit to housing court lands him in the middle of a police shoot-out. He is shot, and wakes up in a hospital, where he finds himself framed for the murder of a police officer. He is sentenced to life imprisonment in a new hi-tech prison city in the Desert Southwest, where he finds he can have anything he wants, except his freedom. Fate plays its hand, as he weathers a series of personal tragedies, and he soon finds himself fighting not just for his freedom, but his life." — quoted from this book's product page on Amazon as of 2018-02-04.