The Walls is Hollie Overton’s second thriller, and introduces us to single mom Kristy Tucker, juggling her teenaged son and her ill father who lives with them. Her work as a public information officer for the Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice makes her the mediator between the inmates, the prison system and the media. Part of her job is to conduct interviews and develop relationships with inmates awaiting execution on Death Row, and to be present as a witness when that execution takes place.

It’s an interesting setup that makes her vulnerable to the emotions of so many others, and to their violent sides. We see her develop a relationship with an inmate, Clifton Harris, accused of murdering his two children, who stoically maintains his insistence on his innocence.

This is a smart woman helping others, including her teenaged son, managing her father’s illness and holding down the fort alone. She craves adult companionship and someone she can lean on.

When her son’s mentor Lance Dobson enters her life, she marries him believing his stosries of his love and dedication to her and her family. But things change radically in just a few short months when Lance’s dedication becomes stifling and his insistence on how she dresses and acts soon becomes physically abusive.

Just as she gathers the strength to admit she’s made a mistake and tells him she wants a divorce, Lance threatens to murder her son and father if she leaves him. It is Clifton Harris who gives her the idea that haunts Kristy.

You may think you know this story, but you would be wrong on many counts. This is a woman at the end of her rope with not only her future but that of her son and her father hanging in the balance. How she decides to handle the situation, and how that affects her, form the second half of this absorbing look at how far someone may have to go to protect their family.