Slam!
A Death in Custody
by Kevin West

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“Okay, look. Here’s what I know.” Jake paused before laying into her. “I don’t need an assistant or FIO or whatever you want to be called. Especially one fresh out of kindergarten or who was promoted because of…well, never mind.” He’d tried to trail off just before he stepped further into the quagmire of HR hell. Too late. Her eyes widened in shock and he heard the anger in her response. “Excuse me? Kindergarten? And promoted because of what?” *** In a Northern Ontario jail, a young Indigenous man is found dead of an overdose in a segregated cell where nobody should have been able to reach him. The local First Nations band, already involved in political turmoil due to the opening of a casino that will completely alter economics in the region, is angry and demanding answers. Brought in to conduct the investigation are Katie, a fiery, young, bi-racial indigenous intelligence officer, and her unwilling partner, Jake, an irascible dinosaur from an earlier generation of Corrections inspectors. While battling the generational divide between them, the unlikely partners begin to uncover a wide-ranging, organized-crime conspiracy to intimidate the First Nations band for casino profits. And the closer Katie and Jake get to the truth, the more dangerous the situation becomes, until it finally combusts in a violent clash at the prison that may cost them both their lives. Meanwhile, even darker events are unfolding on the outside, courtesy of a mysterious killer sent to the region as a “cleaner.” Set in both the dark confines of a jail and the glorious backdrop of Canada’s beautiful Lake of the Woods, Slam is a taut investigative thriller that spectacularly erupts into heart-stopping action.

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Author Kevin West clearly knows the inner workings of the justice system and how to tell a story that gets readers turning the pages. “Slam! A Death in Custody” is a triumphant first novel that cries out for a sequel. - Peter Edwards, ‘National Best Seller’ of 17 True Crime books and co-author of “The Wolfpack, the Millennial Mobsters who brought chaos and the cartels to the Canadian underworld”

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Kevin West served for thirty-nine years in Ontario's Correctional Services. He started at the front line as a correctional officer, then a probation and parole officer before being promoted up through the management ranks. He ultimately attained his final position as Ontario's Director/Chief of Correctional Services Oversight & Investigations. Kevin’s lengthy experience in Corrections, combined with his extensive international experience in martial arts, feature vividly in the action and settings of Slam, lending the novel a precise reality that can only be created by one who’s lived it. He lives with his wife of forty-five years in Niagara, Ontario.

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Kevin West