This Fallen Prey

This Fallen Prey is a 2018 crime novel by the Canadian author Kelley Armstrong, published by Minotaur Books as a 359-page book and part of the Rockton sequence.

The town's arrangements are the premise. There are no mobile phones, no internet and no postal service, and movement in or out requires the approval of the town council, so the novels take place in a place where the ordinary resources of an investigation are missing. Casey, who arrived as a resident, has become the homicide detective there and is involved with her employer.

The plot begins with a decision made by other people. The council accepts a dangerous criminal into the community without a plan for keeping him confined or keeping the residents safe, and the man claims he has been set up. As evidence emerges that someone inside the town may be helping him escape, the question shifts from what he did to who is assisting him, and the novel runs on that internal suspicion. The town is built as a haven for people running from their pasts, which is why the council's decision to admit a dangerous man is a judgement on the community rather than on him alone.