My Lovely Executioner — Peter Rabe

Jimmy Gallivan is only three-and-a-half weeks from his prison release for trying to kill his wife's lover seven years ago. But fellow-inmate Rand has other plans for Gallivan. A break-out is engineered, and now they're hiding out in a sanitarium. But the whole set-up seems suspicious. Rand's boss wants Gallivan to help him with his drug operation. But is that all there is to it? Because it begins to seem like the whole escape was engineered just for him. And what about Jesse? Where does she figure in all of this? Is she the bait - or has she become Gallivan's new jailor?