FDLE agent Bill Tasker's boss is worried about the stress Tasker's been under, but he has a solution. The governor wants somebody from the outside to take a look into an inmate homicide at Manatee Correctional Prison, and the boss figures he can do the state a favor and give Tasker a break at the same time. Some break. Turns out there's a whole lot going on at Manatee. The prison captain likes to enforce discipline by fairly unorthodox methods. The psych ward has been known to misplace a mental patient occasionally. A trustee named Luther has far more on his mind than working in the prison library-though the rods holding up the shelves do make very nice shivs. The prison inspector is carrying a number of very uninspector-like secrets. And something very bad is about to happen to Tasker's next-door neighbor.