The Ascent

Starred review from October 23, 2023
The knockout first novel from San Francisco police sergeant Plantinga (Police Craft) unfolds during a deadly breach at a maximum-security prison. Kurt Argento is a former Detroit cop driving cross country to see the Pacific Ocean when he’s mistakenly arrested in a Missouri town and, due to a plumbing issue at the local jail and the Fourth of July preceding his court date, held over the long weekend in a nearby maximum-security facility. Shortly after he arrives, the prison’s security system crashes during a visit from the governor’s daughter, Julie Wakefield, and all inmates are released from their cells. Always a cop, Argento leads a small team of prison staff and accompanying civilians in guiding Julie up six floors of bloody chaos to their potential rescue on the roof. Plantinga maintains a breakneck pace from start to finish, with end-of-chapter cliffhangers and a devilish narrative structure in which each floor of the prison poses a different and more harrowing threat than the last. Along the way, the tension Plantinga generates between Argento’s Jack Reacher–level self-confidence and criminology major Julie’s more cerebral worldview exerts an irresistible pull. Once readers catch their breath, they’ll be clamoring for more from this rising star. Agent: Caitlin Blasdell, Liza Dawson Assoc.

Starred review from November 1, 2023
An action-packed, cinema-ready debut thriller. Kurt Argento is an ex-cop from Detroit with a stubborn, uncompromising sense of justice and formidable street-fighting skills. Having lost his beloved wife and--see "stubborn, uncompromising" above--recently his job, he heads south and west in his pickup, alone in the world but for his dog. When, at a small-town carnival in Missouri, he sees a young girl enticed into trouble by a pedophile, he intervenes, only to end up, when the perpetrator turns out to be the corrupt sheriff's brother, beaten and in custody. Because of overflow in the local jail, Kurt--who's given a false name and hasn't mentioned being ex-police--is moved to a nearby for-profit maximum-security prison. As he's booked in, all hell breaks loose: Either by glitch or by plan, the computerized lock system goes haywire, unlocking about half of the doors, and the guards--a skeleton crew because it's July 4--quickly either seek shelter or are overwhelmed. After saving a nurse from sexual assault, Kurt encounters a private tour group consisting of a terrified assistant warden, two people who are clearly security officers, and a young woman who turns out to be the governor's daughter, a graduate student doing a discreet site visit for research. They realize that their only hope of escape, in the short time before the whole computer system fails and every door springs open, is to make their way up six floors, each filled with more fearsome inmates than the last, to the roof. If this sounds formulaic, it is; if it sounds like a recipe for steadily escalating mayhem, it is; if you think you know where it's headed, you do. But it's also pulse-pounding, cleverly plotted, fast-paced, expertly made entertainment. A meat-and-potatoes thriller, sure--but they're delicious meat and potatoes.

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