“Caged to Kill” Book Review
By: Shain E. Thomas
Tags: Human Rights, Caged To Kill, Solitary Confinement, Tom Swyers, Book Review

If the first line of the first chapter in the book you’ve just opened does not grab your attention, the likelihood of you making it to the second page decreases significantly.

“Marley was dead, to begin with,” for example, is the first line of Charles Dickens’ 1843 classic ghostly tale A Christmas Carol.

In a similar tone to the one used by Dickens, Tom Swyers’ novel Caged to Kill begins with the line “Death was about to make a house call.” If this line does not make you want to read past the first page, nothing will.

Unlike A Christmas Carol, the novel former New York judge Tom Swyers penned is based on the harsh realities of the broken present day American penal system.

Rarely does a book, with the exception of those penned by Agatha Christie, Colin Dexter and Michael Connelly, leave me with a feeling of excitement and anticipation at the end of each chapter. One of the best ways to describe the feeling is possibly exhilaration.

Unlike that seen with the cliffhanging season finale episode of any given television production, all one has to do with a book is turn the page. There is no waiting four or five months to see how the story continues to unfold. It is right there on the page.

Published by Hillcrest House Publishing earlier this year, 2019, Caged to Kill is Swyers third novel. The premise of the novel revolves around a man that endured decades of solitary confinement in a New York prison before being set free.

In the preface to the book, the author writes, “Mr. William Blake inspired me to write Caged to Kill and his experience in solitary is no laughing matter. It is the embodiment of much of what is wrong with solitary confinement policy today.”

To see himself released from solitary confinement, Blake penned no fewer than 20 letters to various New York attorneys seeking pro bono legal assistance. With as many as 177,000 working attorneys in New York, it is remarkable one of the letters Blake penned would find its way into Swyers’ mailbox.

Blake is currently serving a life sentence at Comstock’s Great Meadows Correctional Facility. inclusive of the Elmira Correctional Facility, he has been incarcerated at several detention centres.

Blake, imprisoned for killing one police officer and wounding another, was placed in solitary confinement not long after his arrival. It is therefore not surprising, considering the length of time Blake has been confined, he is apparently the longest-held prisoner in New York state history to be held in administrative solitary confinement.

As any decent person would do, Swyers responded to the letter he received from Blake requesting legal assistance. With regret, Swyers initially found he was unable to devote the time necessary to assist Blake. Swyers is just one man; thus, he did not have the resources it would take to mount such a lengthy legal battle.

With a spark of genius, Swyers developed an idea that might be of assistance to Blake. With a plan in mind, Swyers wrote a second letter to Blake a few weeks later. By writing a work of fiction based on Blakes situation, Swyers proposal was intriguing.

The former New York judge asked Blake for assistance in doing the necessary research. Fascinated by the idea, Blake agreed to assist Swyers. Consequently, the two men began what would be a lengthy pen-pal relationship.

Even though it is clear Swyers was unaware as to whether corresponding with Blake would yield anything beneficial, fortunately for both Blake and the author’s reading audience, Swyers was adamant in staying the course.

After Swyers learned Blake was not able to enlist the assistance of another lawyer, the former New York judge was especially determined to move forward with researching this latest novel. Despite this point, the novel is secondary to the purpose for which it was written.

The correspondence Swyers received from Blake during the next two years numbered no fewer than 300 single-spaced 8 ½ by 11-inch line-ruled pages. The correspondence, according to Swyers, was exemplary in magnitude and scope.

Further to writing Caged to Kill, Swyers established a Change.Org petition calling for not only Blake’s release from solitary confinement but also the passage in New York of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act, (A. 2500 / S. 1623).