Lockdown

April 24, 2017
Heavy-handed foreshadowing mars this thriller about a shooting that occurs on career day at California’s Guadalupe Middle School from Edgar-winner King (Keeping Watch): “Students will be given the raw materials for their life’s plan, and shown the means to turn it into their life’s tapestry.... But today, the weaving of dreams will unravel long before the final bell”; “the midday sun will be sparkling off a thread of blood oozing down the center of the concrete quad.” The lead-up to the tragic events is presented from multiple perspectives, including those of various school staff members and students, as well as that of police sergeant Olivia Mendez, a speaker who was almost murdered by a gang member at the previous year’s career day. King uses extensive flashbacks to provide the backstories for her characters, but these don’t provide much depth. A subplot concerning the unsolved disappearance of a sixth-grade girl the previous fall adds little, and the end result is a superficial treatment of a serious issue. Agent: Linda Allen, Linda Allen Literary Agency.

May 15, 2017
King turns from recording the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and his wife (The Murder of Mary Russell, 2016, etc.) to a more hard-edged and contemporary subject: the day a shooter seething with resentment descends on a coastal California school.It's Career Day at Guadalupe Middle School, and principal Linda McDonald is excited for all the wrong reasons. How is seventh-grader Chaco Cabrera handling his cousin Taco Alvarez's arrest 11 months ago for the murder of Gloria Rivas? What's become of Danny Escobedo, the boy Gloria was babysitting, who vanished the night she was killed? Is car dealer Chuck Cuomo likely to make waves over the disappearance of his own daughter, sixth-grader Beatrice? How goes it with sixth-grader Nick Clarkson, who suffered a nervous breakdown after Bee's disappearance? Will the secret Linda's husband, Gordon Hugh-Kendrick, is hiding remain safely concealed? What could possibly go wrong when 712 middle school students are asked to spend a whole day dreaming about their futures and meeting with prospective role models like Bee's aunt, professor Allison Kitagawa, and basketball player Brendan Atcheson's father, Thomas, who founded the software firm that's made him the biggest man in San Felipe? In fact, the mundane worries, dreams, memories, and more fully elaborated back stories, variously inflected and amplified by the dozen points of view King flits among as the minutes tick down, are put in chilling perspective by a more urgent threat: a white van ferrying a heavily armed avenger closer and closer to Guadalupe Middle School. "Your purpose is to show how things tie together," the harried principal reflects as zero hour looms. King delivers, providing both a drama-filled anatomy of the school and a chance for its community to show its best by the way it confronts the worst Career Day imaginable.

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from May 1, 2017
It's Career Day at Guadalupe Middle School. Linda, the principal, nervously polishes and repolishes her speech. Olivia, a police officer, is one of the scheduled speakers, but she's distracted by the murder investigation she's working on. Brendan, a student who plays violent video games and dreams about guns, isn't thrilled that his father, a prominent businessman, is also going to be speaking. The memory of Bee Cuomo, an 11-year-old girl who disappeared a year ago, gives the event a sense of desperation: let's have a Career Day, bring the community together, and try to move past what happened to poor Bee. And then, just as the day is beginning, something all too familiar happens: a gunman enters the school. King, the author of the Kate Martinelli mysteries and the long-running and wildly popular Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series, has crafted a riveting story of suspense and tragedy out of the most seemingly mundane ingredients: kids and adults preparing for a day at school. The violence doesn't explode until we're well into the book, but the lead-up to the explosion has the feel of a brewing storm: we know something is going to happen, even if we don't know what it is. A fine thriller, as timely as it is gripping.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

February 1, 2017

In King's first contemporary stand-alone suspense in over a decade, it's Career Day at Guadalupe Middle School, a concept initiated by new principal Linda McDonald in an effort to fight truancy and gang violence. But someone is looking for revenge, and a classroom is held hostage.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.