Breakout, Richard Stark (AKA Donald Westlake), 2002

A quick moving, funny story about a bad guy named Parker or something else who we meet in the Stoneveldt Prison after a burglary goes wrong in the Midwest.  Parker, who has killed a guard in a previous prison break and is looking at real time, hooks up with three other felons and they escape.  They then spend the rest of the book escaping from one tight spot or another until Parker makes his way back to Claire in Jersey.  Entertaining mystery story or comic caper (as the 100 mystery books by Donald Westlake are referred to in  Wikipedia) writing under one of his many pen names. Westlake, who died in 2008, was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America and won 3 Edgars in different categories.