Traps of Mercy

In the rust-belt town of Millbrook, a reclusive widower named Elias Vane turns his derelict house into a gauntlet of jury-rigged horrors after a gang of parolees breaks in. As the bodies pile up, a dogged public defender uncovers that Elias was once a prison reform activist whose own son died in a state penitentiary—and that the very system he fought for had long ago abandoned him. Dunne’s signature social-climbing moral irony infuses every scream: the reader aches for Elias, yet watches his vengeance expose the comfortable hypocrisy of those who weep for prisoners but vote against halfway houses.