Shocked by the violent beating of their popular high-school quarterback, a small New England town immediately calls for justice, and for police chief Jack Baker to restore order.
Caught in the political spiral of the town elders and their ten-cent dictator, first selectman Mason, Baker has no choice but to place one of his most trusted officers, Charlene Goodlow, in the school.
As Baker manages the "'grown-ups'" of the town, Charlene soon finds that she is regressing, her own long-buried high school anxieties returning to gnaw at her.
Increasingly isolated and frightened, Charlene finds herself at the corner of a vicious triangle of lust and animosity. As the violence and tension escalate, she slips further down the rabbit-hole, until she is left with a teenage boy in the sights of her police issue revolver and the singular decision of whether or not she will pull the trigger.
Escalation is a fast-paced work of contemporary fiction, deeply rooted in the darkest of unintended consequences.