I absolutely loved this thriller! As a former educator, it is often difficult to read books about a school shooting, but this one was handled so differently and expertly that I simply couldn't put it down. It literally shows a town coming together after a tragedy at the school, but it's so much more a character study that delves into the lives of the principal, her husband, the janitor, and several of the students. In alternating chapters, King deftly weaves together a poignant tale of a community in crisis and the secrets that can divide us because of past actions. I loved that the end wasn't tied up in a neat little bow, because that's not how life works. Instead I was left wanting to immediately reread (which I never do) because the characters resonated so much with me. If you're a fan of psychological suspense, this one won't disappoint! Now I will go back and read her others.

This book has way too many points of view from way too many characters. I couldn't get interested enough in a character to actually care what happened to that character. Even trying to skip forward and focus on one character didn't help. If this is the way that publishers are going to edit and publish books -- thank goodness for indie publishing!

I've read several of Laurie R. King's other books so I was happy to pick her up again. I liked how a few of the characters from one of her other series made a guest appearance in this book.

Everyone has secrets. From the Principal to the Janitor, from the cool kid to the awkward everyone has something they hide. Learning pieces of everyone's back story in alternating chapters really developed all the characters and made me start questioning what was going to happen. I was pleasantly surprised it was not at all what I expected but good none the less.

This is not a fast paced book but rather a slow burning build up to its climax. While I really enjoyed it I can see why others may not have been as engaged. There are a lot of characters and a lot of things going on in this school. This is a school riddled with crime and now a missing girl. The new Principal comes in to try to clean it up and improve the situation even holding a career day for the kids so they can see the some of their options other than sports. I think if there were a few less plot lines this may have been a better book. It wasn't confusing to me but I started to get invested and wanted to know more about certain characters only to have to move on to another before I was really satisfied. While some may think of this as a good thing I think it held the book back a bit.

Fast-paced, suspenseful and written in multiple voices, this novel pulls off the near-impossible in leaving the reader wondering until the end. Completely in a different character from King's other works, including her pre-Russell and Holmes mysteries, she negotiates this new style with ease.

There was a lot that I liked and disliked about this book, but it made me think about life and tragedy and everyday heroes. So, 5 stars.

The Pros:
- Deep and compelling character development. And nearly all of them sympathetic and honorable (in their own ways).
- There was a touch of ghost story, which was unexpected.
- The author employed a unique way to build a story and build suspense, through so many different yet connected character stories. And I appreciated that the story was less about the actual hostage situation and more about the people involved: The good, the bad, the history, the humanity.

The Cons:
- You know from the plot summary that the school is going to be held hostage and that there will be a shooter (I will note a possible trigger warning for anyone who has been through a mass shooting or hostage situation). But this part of the plot doesn't come to pass until the last quarter of the book. I was annoyed that I was expecting the book to be about the shooting and maybe the subsequent investigation. But instead, the investigation is really done by the reader leading up to the shooting. Once I realized this, then I was fine. But I wish I had known it going in as I almost put it down and gave up.
- There were a LOT of characters. It was difficult to keep track at times.
- With so many characters and unique back-stories, it almost felt like the author had lots of small ideas and decided to put them all into one book.

Not a favorite by this author. Many characters to remember, and it took well past the first half of the book for it to start to come together, but then it did become quite enjoyable. I didn't care for the format of the minutes going by for each character at the same time, took forever. And also the jumping from the past into the future. I'll go back to the Martinelli books, which did show up in this one. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

I am a fan of Laurie R. King's Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series and therefore, had high expectations for this stand-alone novel. The story is told through many characters and, especially in the first third or so of the book, seemed disjointed. The chapters are very short so the character telling the story is constantly changing. There are flashbacks to the pasts of Linda and Gordon which added to the choppiness of the story. The history of Tio came much later in the book and while it was interesting to clear up questions about his background, it didn't really add much to the plot. The suspense built slowly which was not a bad thing, and I thought the final chapters about the incident causing the lockdown were well done. Ms. King was successful in creating the atmosphere of a middle school and the challenges faced by the staff members felt authentic. I would recommend this to people who like suspense and who are looking for an easy beach read.

I think those of us who have read Laurie R. King's other series will be surprised by this standalone. It's an extremely topical book- a school shooting- and she approaches the subject with a far different style than she's known for. I found the short chapters and the insight into the thoughts and hearts of so many of the people who are the school that day an interesting way to wrap you in. That's the positive. The negative, at least for me, is that I never felt totally invested into any of the characters, perhaps because they seemed to be a little too stereotypically diverse. Nonetheless, it's a good quick read about an unpleasant subject. It might keep you guessing. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

I received a copy of this from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I have only read a handful of Laurie R. King's books before, but I will definitely have to read more. [book:Lockdown: A Novel of Suspense|32337121] was definitely a page-turner. The action was non-stop, except for the digressions into the main character's past, and the author certainly provided a number of plausible suspects for the school shooting event that we knew from the beginning was about to happen.

My only issue with the plot was that there were just too many characters with secrets in their past. I don't know - maybe that's how it really is and I'm just oblivious! But I got to the point that I was a little overwhelmed with keeping up with all the hidden pasts.

There were so many characters in this book it was hard to keep them straight. And unfortunately, I didn't really care about any of them. I couldn't relate to them, wasn't especially interested in them, and it seemed to take forever to reach the "thrilling" part of the book. If there had been perhaps half the characters and more focus on them, it would have seemed a stronger book to me. I didn't hate it - but didn't especially like it either.

Lockdown was a surprise. In the end, it was nothing like I expected. Also, in the end, absolutely fascinating. Just not in the way that I expected at the beginning.

I was not expecting Holmes and Russell. Not that I wouldn’t love another entry in that series, but I knew this wasn’t it.

Instead, Lockdown is a story that starts out slowly and picks up steam, much as Guadalupe Middle School Principal Linda McDonald starts her day out early but slowly and ends with an exhausted rush at the end of this long and very surprising day.

It’s Career Day at Guadalupe, and Linda expects something to go wrong. Because, well, middle school. Take a whole herd of sixth, seventh and eighth graders, all rushing headlong into puberty at varying rates, mix well and throw them all together into a single steaming pot. It’s a guaranteed recipe for trouble at the best of times and in the best of places. The San Felipe neighborhood that Guadalupe serves is neither. And the varying differences of circumstances and misery that surround the students reflects both on their hyper-hormonal age group and the mostly working class racial melting pot neighborhood that surrounds them.

And in the middle of it all are two long-simmering tragedies. At the beginning of the school year, sixth grader Bee Cuomo went missing, and has neither been found, seen or heard from in the months since. And last year gang-leader Taco Alvarez murdered Gloria Rivas in cold blood, witnessed by two of Guadalupe’s students – Gloria’s sister Sofia and her friend Danny Escobedo. As the school prepares for Career Day, Taco’s trial is also proceeding, while his young cousin, still a Guadalupe student, tries to figure out what he owes to a cousin he both fears and worships.

But as the day moves forward and winds up to its explosive conclusion, the story peeks into the lives of every standout character in the school. That exploration begins with the Principal and her husband, from their surprising meeting in the jungles of Papua New Guinea to his rather murky past as a gun-for-hire. But everyone involved has secrets of their own, from the janitor who keeps the school running in some mysterious ways to the Coach who tries his best to save young boys before their eyes go completely dead to the students themselves.

They say that all happy families are alike, but that unhappy families are each unhappy in their own ways. And we see that here as their worlds collide with explosive violence, and it all goes wrong. But some things, after all, go right.

Escape Rating A-: At first, I wasn’t sure where this story was going. Based on the blurbs, it was pretty obvious that it was going to end in a school shooting, but I’ll admit to being completely misled about the shooter and their motivation until the very end.

And it does go slowly at first. There are a lot of characters, and a lot of tiny, individual portraits to sort through. At the beginning it felt as if the only characters we lingered on long enough to get a clear picture were Linda McDonald and her very mysterious husband Gordon Kendrick. Through Linda’s memories, we see their first meeting, and it’s obvious from the very beginning that Gordon has a very big secret that is finally catching up with him. It takes a while before that secret finally bites him in the ass, and the way that it happens just adds to the drama.

There are a lot of threads to this story. As the focus shifts from person to person, we see the way the wind blows. But there is more than enough misdirection for the reader to think that the explosion is coming from a completely different direction than it actually is.

The school is faced with so many crises, and both the students and their guardians have so many violent secrets. It’s not surprising that something erupts, only the how and the when are mysterious. Even the why becomes a bit obvious early on, or at least the reader thinks it does.

I went down the wrong path for a long time, and at the end was forced to back up and see where I missed the fork in the road. The misdirection was very well done.

While in her Career Day speech McDonald focuses on all the threads that make up the school and its community, the story is about all the threads that make up the tragedy and its aftermath. Once Linda’s day, and the story, get going, it’s impossible to stop until the end.

So I didn’t.

It has been many years since I read one of Laurie R. King's Mary Russell novels, but I remember them very fondly as a wildly enjoyable read. It pains me to say this, but I think Ms. King needs to stick to the Mary Russell series, as every novel I have read that isn't Mary Russell is very dry and dull in comparison.

This is an ensemble novel, filled with diverse characters, each with their own history and secrets. The story switches points of view very often, and this becomes very confusing, despite the differences in their voices. That POV switching also made the story very choppy and hard to follow. I found that I couldn't bring myself to care about the characters because of this.

Another problem the POV switching caused for me was a lack of interaction and cohesion between the characters. It took a bit more than half the book for things to get really started interaction-wise and by that point, I was just wanting to get through it as fast as possible. Then, the flashbacks started. It took a disjointed plot and made it worse! The bad thing was, these flashbacks were longer than the events in present day and often times didn't feel relevant to me.

While I applaud the author for making this a slight tie-in to her other present day series, that was not enough to redeem the book in my eyes. I would not recommend this to others, or purchase a copy for myself.

Wow! This story was well written and amazingly executed! The suspense and psychological thrill of each character had me going what could happen next. I could not put this book down and it was just so exciting. It was a little fast paced, and left me not wanting it to end. We learned a lot of back stories on the different characters and how their story unravels throughout this book. This is my first book by this author but it won't be my last.

I am a big fan of Laurie R. King’s contemporary thrillers, and this one is no exception. Thank you to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for the DRC, which I read free and early in exchange for this honest review. It’s for sale today, so now everyone can read it.

King’s feminist fiction is made more delicious by her careful attention to detail. There is NEVER a single moment in which the setting—which is primarily at Guadalupe Middle School—slips and shows the reader that the Great and Powerful Oz is really just a human behind a curtain. Her magic never falters. Every fine detail regarding school schedules, culture, and protocol is true to life. This reviewer spent a couple of decades teaching in a middle school not much different from King’s fictional one, and I have never seen any novelist get everything so completely right in using school as the main setting.

As the cover suggests, this story is centered around a school shooting in California that takes place on career day. This is ticklish business to say the very least, one that authors dared not approach for a long time. Now, with Columbine significantly in our rear-view mirror but with school shootings an increasing, ever-present concern, King works it like a pro. A large measure of her success has to do with the way she builds her characters. We have a complex blend, from the school administrator, Linda McDonald; to her spouse Gordon, who has secrets that must not be revealed; to Tio, the custodian, another man that holds his cards closely; to the kids, the kids, the kids. We have Mina, the perfect student who has worries all her own, to Chaco—my personal favorite—to a host of others. By the time we reach the climax, we feel as if we know each one of these people, and so it isn’t a story of violence in the broad sense, but the fates of real people that collide.

This white-knuckle read treats issues of class, ethnicity and gender with the sensitivity one might expect from a master of the genre. When I finish, it is replete with the satisfaction I receive at the end of Thanksgiving dinner—but this feast is one I don’t have to cook up myself, which makes it all the better. I’ve read 11 other books, mostly galleys, since I read Lockdown, and yet in my memory this one stands out as exceptionally strong fiction, the kind of book one wants to read a second time. And I know that when I do, some things will leap out from the pages brand new, because such a layered, intricate story is full of delightful niches and crannies that aren’t necessarily seen the first time through.

I wholeheartedly recommend this story to good people that love novels of suspense. If it means you have to pay full freight—do it anyway. I would have.

Career day at Guadalupe High School is a big affair and you just know something very bad is going to happen that day. And, when it started, I was majorly surprised at who started it.

King has several characters in this book, students, teachers, and parents and tells of their stories and their thoughts leading up to the big Career Day. There is even a story about a former student (Bee) who used to go to Guadalupe but who disappeared on her way to school several years ago. There is also a student who's sister was killed by a gang member of who's brother also goes to Guadalupe High.

There are several plot lines going on in this book and they definitely kept and held my interest. Trying to figure out who will be the one to cause the trouble on Career Day was certainly not easy as I had several suspects in my mind going down to the big day. And, everyone I guess was wrong. A great read that deals with the workings and people attending Guadalupe High School.

I enjoyed reading this book and wish to thank Random House/Ballantine and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review

I would like to thank Laurie R. King, Random House and Netgalley for giving me this book for my honest review!
Review By Stephanie
This book had me at the description! But Lockdown was NOT what I was expecting! I was expecting that sad and scary tale of a gun toting crazy person invading the school but what I got instead was a deadly fever making Guadalupe Middle School be on lockdown. I was glued to my kindle... needing to know how this happened! The stories of each student, teacher and everyone around the school intertwine so amazingly... is that even a word, well it is today!
Laurie R. King did amazing writing this book. Lockdown kept me glued to my kindle wondering who was the killer and why would someone do this to so many innocent people....oh and yeah also is everyone else really so innocent. I have said enough.. go OneClick this book today!

The novel is told from the point of view of different characters. They all have something they'd rather not tell about, and it makes you wonder who will be the one whose past mistakes brings the doom over Guadalupe Middle School. The novel kept me interested until the very last page. I was surprised to see that the author chose a rather sensitive subject to tackle, but it was well approached.

The shifting perspective from one character to another added to the dramatic effect and it showed the gaps in understanding between people. Their background story was something that added an extra flavor to the novel. It was nice to have the bird's eye view and see how prompted each character's actions.

One shortcoming of this novel was the list of characters. At first it was difficult to keep track of all the characters, and I sometimes confused them, especially the boys. However, because their perspective was presented more often I got them all figured out and it was no longer a problem. Another thing worth mentioning is that although the book blurb describes it as a day of confrontation and shocking turn of events, this takes up a smaller part than I was expecting. Only towards the last 15% percent of the book does the event occur. Up to that point, it is a gradual increase in tension. Yes, it is done well, but just a heads up that this is not the thing that covers a large section of the novel.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the author had a grasp on teenagers' reactions. How they reacted and spoke read as something a teenager would. The connections between characters, and their maturity despite their age (the oldest was in 8th grade, the youngest in 6th grade) made it feel like the novel was about some high-schoolers.

All in all, though, this is probably one of the most original mystery and suspense novels I've read, mainly because of its topic. I enjoyed reading it very much.

Outstanding book! Characterization was everything! You felt these were very live 3 dimensional people, storyline was great, how the stories intermingled with the minute by minute chapters were great. Suspenseful and chilling. Great book, I highly recommend this book! This should win all the awards next year!

Author Laurie R. King, best known for her Sherlock Holmes-Mary Russell historical mystery series, has penned a suspense-filled stand-alone novel that will keep readers reading much too far into the night.

Something really, really, really bad is about to happen at Guadalupe Middle School, a working-class school in a California town plagued with gangs, drug- and alcohol-addicted parents, child abuse, a disappeared child — the usual panoply of modern urban problems. That’s no spoiler: King foreshadows the horrendous event that occurs there on Career Day. The plot is revealed, bit by bit, in alternating points of view: missionary-turned-principal Linda McDonald, who has made great strides in turning the school around in her first year; McDonald’s mysterious English husband; a Chicana policewoman; the daughter of an Iranian émigré; a troubled, overly imaginative boy; the sullen basketball star and his overbearing father; the strict but wise basketball coach; the younger brother of two gangbangers, and the school’s janitor, who is much more than he seems. King manages to gradually turn up the suspense on what form the terror will take and who the perpetrator will turn out to be, with several possibilities dangled throughout. The novel, while not labeled young adult, will certainly appeal to that demographic as well as adults. Highly recommended.

Incidentally, King, who also has a five-book series featuring lesbian police detective Kate Martinelli has Officer Olivia Mendez telephone Martinelli as part of an investigation, a very nice touch.

In the interest of full disclosure, I received this book from NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine Bantam in exchange for an honest review.

The story takes place at a school that is tainted with a missing child and a murder. Trying to clean up the schools reputation Principle Linda McDonald decides to have a career day. Some of the speakers are business men and a policewoman. All of a sudden everything goes wrong and the school goes into lockdown.
The story starts out trying to introduce the main characters which is confusing since some of the parts take place earlier. It was a good read and kept me engaged until the conclusion.