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Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most, her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days. And that quickly, Sara ends up at a privately-run retention center, where she and the other detainees are monitored virtually every minute by guards and electronics to insure that they comply with ever-changing rules lest their sentences be increased as a result of an infraction.

Laila Lalami has created a very realistic future society, where an effort to reduce crime has led to massive surveillance, including not only observable behaviors but also dreams, which are then interpreted according to a mysterious algorithm to determine who is likely to commit a crime in the future. Punishment for crimes has been replaced by crime prevention, and retention facilities are touted as a means of keeping society safe from crimes.

As Sara's sentence is repeatedly extended, often because of write-ups for seemingly random or totally fictitious violations, she begins to despair of ever being freed. After nearly a year of confinement and separation from her husband and their infant twins, it seems that playing by the rules will never earn her release, and rebellion is her response. The tension ramps up as the novel follows her rebellion and the system's responses, and this reader turned the pages eagerly to learn the outcome.

Highly recommended for those who enjoy mysteries and dystopian fiction, this novel will be published in March 2025. Thank you to the publisher and #NetGalley for providing a complimentary ebook in exchange for an objective review.