Freedom's Just Another Word

Rebecca Murdock is a solicitor with the British Columbia Labour
Relations Board.

Freedom’s Just Another Word is an offbeat thriller about a group of
female cons who are as capable as any male prisoner of dishing up nasty.


Narrated by Maggie, who is awaiting trial for the murder of her
dope-dealing, Harley-driving husband, Mongrel, Part 1 is set in B.C.’s
Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women. (The novel is dedicated to the
inmates there.) In nicely nuanced passages that replay Mongrel’s death
scene, Maggie delivers competing versions of her guilt and innocence.
“Who pulled the trigger?” is a persistent and engaging subplot until
the novel’s end—by which point, seduced by Maggie’s character, we
no longer care to pass judgment.

Under the guise of a 12-step self-help program, the female cons meet
and plan their escape. When Maggie and her cohorts disappear into Middle
America in a lumbering mobile home, it’s a road trip reminiscent of
Thelma and Louise but a whole lot grimmer. If Part 1 is the women’s
journey into freedom, Part 2 is their grudging journey into
self-awareness. “Freedom shapes-shifts,” says Maggie. “It starts
out looking like one thing, and then it changes later on and looks like
something else.”

First-time novelist Dakota Hamilton is adept at developing female
characters—women who view the world with wry skepticism. Her cons are
compelling, but the thriller genre in which they operate falls flat
during key moments, such as the night of the big escape. In other words,
Hamilton is not nearly as skilled at creating suspense as she is at
exploring the human psyche. Despite this weakness, she has produced a
romping story.