The Prison Minyan

By Jonathan Stone

Welcome to Otisville, America’s only Jewish prison…where a new celebrity inmate is about to shatter the peace

‘Erudite, trenchant and touching’ - Michael Arditti

'Delectable... glorious... this most cherishably Jewish of books.' - Jewish Chronicle

The scene is Otisville Prison, upstate New York. A crew of fraudsters, tax evaders, trigamists and forgers discuss matters of right and wrong in a Talmudic study and prayer group, or ‘minyan’, led by a rabbi who’s a fellow convict.

As the only prison in the federal system with a kosher deli, Otisville is the penitentiary of choice for white-collar Jewish offenders, many of whom secretly like the place. They’ve learned to game the system, so when the regime is toughened to punish a newly arrived celebrity convict who has upset the 45th president, they find devious ways to fight back.

Shadowy forces up the ante by trying to ‘Epstein’ – ie assassinate – the newcomer, and visiting poetry professor Deborah Liston ends up in dire peril when she sees too much. She has helped the minyan look into their souls. Will they now step up to save her?

Jonathan Stone brings the sensibility of Saul Bellow and Philip Roth to the post-truth era in a sharply comic novel that is also wise, profound and deeply moral.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lightning Books
• Release date: Dec 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781785632990

Jonathan Stone

Jonathan Stone writes his books on the commuter train between his home in Connecticut and his advertising job in midtown Manhattan, where he has honed his writing skills by creating smart and classic campaigns for high-level brands such as Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, and Mitsubishi. Stone’s first mystery-thriller series, the Julian Palmer books, won critical acclaim and was hailed as “stunning” and “risk-taking” in starred reviews by Publishers Weekly. He earned glowing praise for his novel The Cold Truth from the New York Times, who called it “bone-chilling.” He is the recipient of a Claymore Award for best unpublished crime novel and a graduate of Yale University, where he was a Scholar of the House in fiction writing. He is also the author of Two for the Show, The Teller, Moving Day, The Heat of Lies, Breakthrough, and Parting Shot.