Jack Swyteck and his family are caught in the crossfire after a deadly school shooting claims twenty casualtiesâFloridaâs fifth mass shooting in as many yearsâin this provocative and timely thriller from Harper Lee Prizeâwinner James Grippando that touches on some of the most contentious issues roiling America today.
It is the message every parent of a school-age child fears: âActive Shooter on Campus.â
Jack Swyteck is at his office when he receives the emergency text from Riverside Day School. Both his daughter, Righley, and his wife, FBI agent Andie Henning, are in danger. Andie is in the schoolâs rec center when she hears the fire alarms, then loud popping noises and screams coming from the hallway. A trained law-enforcement officer, Andie knows sheâs supposed to stay locked down inside the room. But Righley is in her kindergarten classroom and Andie must get her to safety.
The tragedy prompts mass hysteriaâand dangerous speculation. The police havenât identified the shooter, but they find a handgun on the school grounds registered to a parent, a Muslim man named Amir Khoury. News of the gun and its owner leaks and quickly goes viral. Within minutes Al Qaeda claims responsibility. Andie is shockedâAmir is married to her friend, Lilly, a WASP whose bloodline goes back to the American Revolution.
When Xavier, Amir and Lillyâs oldest child and an eighteen-year-old senior at Riverside confesses to the crime, the local communityâs anti-Muslim fervor explodes to levels unseen since 9/11. Terrified for her sonâs life, Lilly asks Jack to step in. A seasoned defense attorney with a passion to see justice done, heâs taken on plenty of complicated cases. Xavierâs, however, is not one heâs inclined to takeâuntil an old friend who lost his daughter in the shooting tells him that he must.
With the public calling for blood and prosecutors confident their case is air tight, Jack must unearth the Khourysâ family secrets in order to expose the shocking truth and save his client from certain death. But he may not be able to save everyoneâincluding himself.
Aldo
2021-01-22
SpÀnnande och smart