Furnace: Lockdown
Alexander Gordon Smith
 Alex Sawyer is a young teenage boy who world gets flipped upside down, after he and his friend Toby are trying to rob a house. They are ambushed by large, silver eyed men in black suits. These men shoot Toby, then frame Alex for the murder. Alex is sentenced to life imprisonment in Furnace Penitentiary, a juvenile prison buried a mile underground. On his way there, Alex meets Zee and Monty, who were also framed for murder. Furnace is quickly shown to be no ordinary prison. The silver eyed men, called blacksuits, that framed Alex are guards, assisted by skinless dogs during "Blood Watches". During blood watches, prisoners are ordered back to their cells and wheezers, creatures with gas masks stitched to their faces, come to take prisoners. Prisoners taken during blood watches never come back. When Alex first comes, his cellmate, Donovan, teaches him how to survive. The prison is ruled by a gang called the Skulls, who abuse the other prisoners mercilessly. Alex finds a passage leading to an underground river, but with no holes large enough to let him through. He, Donovan, and Zee hatch a plan to put gas from the kitchen in rubber gloves, and, when enough are collected, blow and exit in the rock. Monty is taken from his cell during a blood watch, and later the guards bring out a beast sharing Monty's birthmark which they allow to kill his cellmate, who had beaten Monty. The leader of the Skulls is killed by a new prisoner, Gary Owens, who quickly reveals himself to be a psychopath without regard for human life. When Alex is almost killed by the Skulls,Donovan frantically tells Gary of their plan to escape the Furnace. Gary allows him to survive on the condition that he escapes with them. Donovan is then taken during a blood watch, putting their plans of escape in jeopardy. They try to escape before their plans are discovered. They find that Monty has become a blacksuit, but he is not fully brainwashed and allows them to continue. They blow the gas they have been collecting and jump into the underground river. The story continues in the next book in the series.