Recoil by Jim Thompson

Trade paperback format. 

Patrick Cosgrove used to think he’d do anything not to be a prisoner of Sandstone State Reformatory. Fifteen years on the inside for a victimless crime, under the care of a warden whose penchant for violence is legendary — surely nothing could be worse.

But when an unbelievably Samaritan act by a psychologist he’s never met places Cosgrove in the care of Roland “Doc” Luther, Cosgrove’s not so sure he hasn’t traded the frying pan for the fire after all. On the one hand, Doc claims that Cosgrove owes him nothing, and seems at times like the most decent man alive. But at other times, Doc’s potential for cruelty seems unimaginable.

As it turns out, freedom’s not as freeing as he thought it would be — especially when it might end up getting him killed.