Midnight Express

So this one of those books I am surprised I haven't read before now. Fairly well known, the plug on the cover says ‘A harrowing true story in the great Papillion tradition', which it really is.
The short version of the plot - in 1970 a foolish American decides to stick 2kg of hash in his pants just before boarding his flight home. Caught, he enters the Turkish police cells, then on to prison. He attends court a couple of times, is sentenced to a short stay, which is subsequently changed to thirty years by the high court. It isn't a spoiler to say after five years he makes a successful escape to Greece, where he is deported to the USA.
The writing wasn't particularly special, but it told the story well and came across honestly. The book tells of the corruption within the prison system, the violence of the prison authorities - the beatings, the rapes (mostly of the child prisoners), the availability of drugs, and the horrific prison conditions. It also tells the stories (or part of them) of Hayes' fellow inmates,although whether these are true or not is probably up for debate. In likelihood he probably changed their details around etc.
For me it was pretty compelling reading. It has aged well (1977 it was published), and doesn't suffer from being a generation or two old. Four stars for me.

On another note, I don't recall having seen the film, but it does differ fairly significantly from the book. The movie firstly has him with a girlfriend at the time of his arrest, then embellishes the psychiatric hospital visit (in the film he bites out someone's tongue), and the film sees him killing the head guard, which didn't happen, and his eventual escape differs from the escape method outlined in the book.