One Breath Away by Heather Gudenkauf. A story out of today's news coverage. Set in a small town in Iowa, a gunman is has entered a classroom in their school the day before spring break. As typical for Iowa, there is also a late season blizzard raging, cutting off help and making matters worse. The new female police officer has to work her way around male "I'm the man" attitudes. When parents can not pick up their children after school and word gets out into the community hot heads try to prevail and congestion of traffic and people threaten the police force's efforts. There are plenty of suspects, and the complication of a suicide. The classroom teacher is doing her best of avoid a killing. A torn apart family of three generations is re-examining their issues. Chapters are "narrated" by various characters as is becoming popular in the books I have read lately. It's a good simple read. I did not guess the villain ahead of time. Being a sixth generation Iowan and a former teacher, the plot snagged my curiosity. We had practice lock down-drills in more that one school when I taught so I critiqued the actions of teachers, administrators, clerical workers and students as the story went along! An 8 out of 10. Worth it. Recommended.
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