Monday, July 14, 2014

A Columbine Style School Shooting

Assistant DA, Rachael Knight, and her friend Detective Bailey Keller are summoned to the scene of what appears to be a Columbine copy-cat shooting spree. However, the findings at the scene don't line up. The supposed killers committed suicide, or did they? Dr. Shoe, the medical examiner, says the dead boys
couldn't be the shooters.

This is the beginning of a tense search for the messed up teenagers who are on a killing rampage. The plot has many twists which keeps you reading to figure out what will happen next. I wouldn't recommend this book, if you're squeamish about mass murder, but the plot moves quickly and the author doesn't give undue space to the horror of the scene.

The novel is a fast paced crime thriller. There's hardly time to get to absorb one set of facts before being hit by another twist. Although the subject matter was uncomfortable, the author used the book to give insights into the psychological makeup of this kind of killer as well as the legal problems surrounding trying juvenile killers. The background on previous school shootings added reality to the story.

I enjoyed the book. However, it was because of the fast pace rather than the characters. So much was happening that the characters became more talking heads interviewing suspects than real people. In this book that wasn't a limitation because the interviews were the meat of the book. However, if you enjoy character driven novels, this is definitely plot driven and probably not for you.

I reviewed this book for Net Galley.



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