Laurie R. King

The weeks between seeing the paper-bound galleys

and getting the first review are always a nervous time. Will they get it?  Will they LIKE it??

Well, Booklist does:

Issue: May 1, 2017

Lockdown.

Advanced Review – Uncorrected Proof

King, Laurie R. (Author)
Jun 2017. 400 p. Bantam, hardcover, $28. (9780804177931).

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, and bring the community together, 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.

— David Pitt

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You can pre-order a copy from: Poisoned Pen (signed), Bookshop Santa Cruz (signed, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon.