Fantastic book

[Boundary Problem]

Just finished reading "Beyond These Prison Walls". Excellent book. Couldn't put it down.

 

It was set in the 1700's and a leader of the religious right was imprisoned for suspected ties to the portuguese. So he was arrested and put in the Bastille.

 

The description of the horrors in the Bastille were gutwrenching.

 

So of course he wanted to escape. His wife was horrified and marshalled all the support of her community, the portuguese religious right and they put together a solid plan to rescue him from the Bastille. She even had the ear of a prominent judge who assisted with having amenable guards assigned to his ward.

 

So - if you don't want me to spoil the book - stop reading.....spoiler alert....

 

So the "leader" husband who was imprisoned kept sending his wife notes about how to rescue him, which she dutifully read. (She was a very dutiful and loyal wife - and beautiful too). So she's reading the instructions and consulting with the Judge and between the two of them they figure out that the husband's notes are all wrong. His information about the Bastille tunnels was out of date (must be getting bad info from other prisoners - who knows). And he started writing snotty notes about why hadn't the rescue taken place yet, and that it was VERY IMPORTANT that he be rescued, since he was CRITICAL to this religious movement.

 

The notes were never-ending and filled with errors and were actually a complete distraction from the excellent plan put together by the judge and the portuguese forces.

 

Meanwhile, in between writing notes, this husband "leader" was upgraded in the Bastille to a better cell. Why? He was diddling the guards. Male guards I might add. And it later came out that he was a compulsive smoker, so he apparently would do anything for cigarettes (with anybody).

 

Anyways, the rescue plan was put in motion and when the rescue team came to extract him from the 'horrors' of the Bastille - he was nowhere to be found. He wasn't in his upgraded not-too-bad cell. So they had to retreat to avoid being imprisoned themselves.

 

Turns out (****spoiler alert) - he was down in the kitchens of the Bastille at the time, diddling the cook in the pantry. Anything for cigarettes you see. Compulsive smoker, especially after sex. Filthy habit.

 

So the wife wasn't told of the real reason he wasn't in his cell. But she dutifully turned up to watch his execution a week later. She received a great deal of support and the book sort of inferred it, but didn't make it clear, but there was some sort of inference that she ended up with his brother. I wasn't too clear, but that was part of the enigma of the ending. Sort of leaves it up in the air.

 

Anyways - a real page turner. I highly recommend it. Author is Hef Luckedup. First time author - but he hit it out of the park.

[Angel1111]

Sounds awesome. There's nothing like a great book, is there?