Buyout-Alexander C. Irvine

Buyout
Alexander C. Irvine
Del Rey, Mar 31 2009, $14.00
ISBN: 9780345494337

In 2040 Los Angeles middle management insurance executive Martin Kindred works for Antelope Valley Casualty, a firm seeking to increase profit margin after a fiscally disastrous 2039. The brass comes up with a terrific reengineering solution to cut government costs and obtain revenue by eliminating overcrowding in prisons caused by the increase over the past few decades to 22 crimes leading to automatic life sentences without freeing the incarcerated. The beneficiaries of lifers with no chance for parole will receive millions if the convict opts for immediate death.

Martin is assigned the task of preparing the prisoner-volunteer for execution and subsequently giving the check to their survivors. The once dead pro-life movement resurfaces in a furor over the cold hearted bottom line execution. Martin finds himself caught in the crosshairs, which impact his marriage. However, his neutrality collapses when his brother the cop is murdered.

Using hyperbole to extrapolate America’s second greatest growth industry during the Bush Administration, the warehousing zealousness of convicts (military contractors were first), Alexander C. Irvine provides a profound futuristic parable. The story line leaves the audience questioning the prison system especially privatization in which the government pays by the number of prisoners incarcerated. BUYOUT is a well written dark winner using trend analysis exaggerated into the future to provide a solution to America’s fondness for prison warehousing

Harriet Klausner