Green River Rising: A Novel

In a penitentiary torn apart by vicious riots, Dr. Ray Klein, who has just won his parole, is forced to choose between freedom and those he cares about, including the woman he loves

Few thrillers aspire to high art; fewer still make the grade. This one, a first novel by an English psychiatrist, exploits the dramatic potential of prison life and gets an A for ambition only. Here, it's a Texas big house whose dome of green glass obviates all privacy and permits its crazed warden, John Hobbes, to enact the arcane correctional theories of philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The ideas of Bentham (and of Kant) seep through the narrative--which focuses on how Ray Klein, an M.D. convicted of rape, behaves during a brutal riot. Willocks coats his narrative with a glaze of intellectuality that's cracked with pretentions: in one scene, Klein and Hobbes discuss fate and free will in terms that should make a coffeehouse poseur blush ("Even the man before the firing squad has a choice," said Hobbes. "He can fall whimpering to his knees or he can refuse the blindfold and sing"). Beneath the glaze lies an utterly conventional--if smartly paced--plot in which villains (Hobbes; savage cons) wear black and get their comeuppance, the heroes (Klein; a gang leader; an aging trustee) wear white and emerge triumphant and the sole woman character serves mostly to provide a graphic sex scene or two. The prose is sinewy but narcissistic, while the atmospherics, though powerful, don't match those of Mitchell Smith's comparable Stone City. First serial to Granta; film rights to Alan J. Pakula/Warner Bros.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A debut thriller set in a Texas prison by a young British psychiatrist who has never been to Texas, or to a prison. Nevertheless, the book's description of life in Green River, a mythical maximum security prison, is frighteningly convincing. The plot, however, is action-movie simple. A once-idealistic warden causes a race riot to shake up the corrupt system. This happens to take place the day before Ray Klein, a marshal-arts-obsessed doctor who was set up on rape charges, is due out on parole. Worse yet, the love of his life, a tough-as-nails visiting forensic psychiatrist, is trapped in the AIDS ward, and Klein must find a way to save his damsel in distress, as well as his adopted patients, before they are killed by the bad guys--an all-star team of white psychopaths. Klein does this with the help of his colorful sidekicks, most of whom are equally innocent men unjustly forced into prison by the cruel world. These sidekicks are all cut from the best-supporting-actor mold: the simple-minded giant, the sensitive black boxer, the gruff but caring lifer. Just to show that he is no mere schlock writer, Willocks then mixes in some watered-down and bombastic Foucault-sounding pontification on good and evil, discipline and punishment, and death and dying. But don't worry--brutal violence is always just a page away. In Willocks's prison, everything comes down to the good versus the bad, literally black versus white, with the blacks being good and the whites bad. But forceful writing somehow pulls the plot along, and, despite all of its flaws, including the silly and improbable sex scenes, Green River Rising is a fierce read. Realize that you are ingesting gobs of junk artfully disguised as gourmet fare, then dive in and enjoy. (First serial to Granta; film rights to Alan J. Pakula/Warner Bros.) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Big-time publicity and lots of (promised) hoopla must portend something. But after reading Willocks' book, it's hard to know exactly what. Set in Green River State Penitentiary in Texas, a hell on Earth for the hardest of hard-core cons, the story is violent, horrifying, and gut-wrenching, describing a prison riot that's part Dante's Inferno, part Stephen King horror novel. The main characters include a doctor convicted of rape, a lifer who runs the prison infirmary, and a sexy psychiatrist with a raging libido. The positives: Willocks offers some convincing patches of skillful writing that add up to a riveting, tense, harrowing story, and he's obviously done his homework, if the complex medical jargon and lurid, shocking descriptions of life inside are any indication. The negatives: this book is not for the squeamish, the sensitive, or those who are easily offended by four-letter words. The plot and characters are not always consistent or logical, rocketing between the sickeningly gross, the shockingly offensive, the glibly sentimental, and the nearly unbelievable. Still, the book is compelling, and it will be interesting to see if Willocks becomes the hot new author of a surefire (albeit controversial) best-seller or whether he'll fade from the scene before the first printing sells out. Either way, there's sure to be initial demand, but buy with caution--this one may provoke strong reader reaction. Emily Meltom

Willocks delivers an extraordinary second novel about an uprising at a state penitentiary in Texas. The story's well-developed characters include Dr. Ray Klein, a wrongly convicted orthopedic surgeon awaiting parole; Juliette Devlin, a forensic psychiatrist studying prisoners with AIDS; Frog Coley, a convict who has the gift of healing; Henry Abbott, a schizophrenic inmate; and John Campbell Hobbes, an insane warden. Hobbes plants the seeds for the uprising by manipulating existing racial and sexual tensions and then ordering a total lockdown of the cellblocks. Suspense mounts as riots flare and order becomes anarchy. Devlin is trapped with others in the besieged infirmary, while Klein battles to rescue them. Central to this gripping and often graphic plot is Klein: his struggles to survive prison, his fears of a life outside, and his developing love for Devlin. Highly recommended for adult fiction collections.
Stacie Browne Chandler, Plymouth P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.