The Women's House of Detention is an exhaustively-researched and richly-detailed history of the eponymous women's prison that once operated in Greenwich Village, but its focus sprawls beyond the walls of the building itself as Ryan explores the lives of the cis women and trans men who passed through it. He argues convincingly that the Women's House of D served as a crucial center of queer culture in the Village, and in the process also makes the importance of prison abolition abundantly clear.

It's as fascinating, harrowing, and infuriating as you likely expect just from the subject matter. It feels very solid from an academic point of view, but Ryan's prose reads well and makes the book fine for slightly heavy pleasure reading. I have a couple of personal quibbles: The book does become a bit repetitive and I found it difficult to keep some of the individuals profiled clear in my mind, and the oft-repeated phrase "women and transmasculine people" stuck in my craw a little the way it always does when people say "women" but mean "cis women."

However, this feels like an important chronicle of queer history, and I do recommend it.