Three sevens A detective story

About the book

Craig's confinement in a brutal punishment cell seems to leave little room for hope until a cat brings an unexpected connection with a dead prisoner's ingenuity. Escape becomes possible, but Craig wants more than his own liberty. Believing that innocent and sufficiently punished men remain behind bars, he attempts to replace the prison's authority with a rough system of his own. The resulting upheaval exposes a dangerous difference between intending justice and controlling events. With the encouragement of a young woman committed to prison reform, he takes on responsibility for pursuing dangerous men who have escaped. Sheehan combines the mechanics of an audacious prison adventure with a moral problem: what someone owes the world when an idealistic intervention has helped release violence into it.

• Justice and punishment
• Idealism and consequences
• Responsibility

Why read it

The action grows from an unusually difficult motive: repairing harm caused by an attempted act of justice.

English text of the Chelsea House edition, copyright 1927