A somewhat difficult read, especially as a UK reader who doesn't understand the need for guns in modern day society. It is, however, extremely compelling, as so often we get very little information on the victims of these killings unless they were 'sensational' for a reason only known to the press. Younge handles his material sensitively and with grace. It opens up many questions on the debate around guns that is likely to never go away unless drastic action is taken in the US.

I chose to read this book after watching an interview with the author, Gary Younge, on a breakfast tv show. His premise on which this story is built is such a heartbreaking one, particularly having recently read Sue Klebold's book, 'A Mother's Reckoning,' on the mass shooting at Columbine High School; the fact that on any random day he would have been able to record the stories behind any number of deaths by shooting in America. These are individual, and often child victims of gun crime that barely wrinkle the surface of American peoples' lives; deaths by shooting of victims that are often innocent bystanders in the wrong place at the wrong time; deaths by shooting that are generally unrecorded in the media; deaths by shooting that are often left without prosecution or indeed closure by the grieving friends and families of the victims. Gary Younge is sensitive, but uncompromising in his criticism of an America weighed down by the bodies of victims of gun crime. As I write we are barely 10 days on from the latest massacre in Las Vegas, described as 'the deadliest mass shooting in US history.'* (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/02/las-vegas-strip-shooting-multiple-casualties-reported-near-mandalay/).
We need books like this; books that tell the honest and real stories that are the result of current gun laws in America and that might otherwise be forgotten.

A very interesting and compelling book about a random day in the United States, picking a small number of people who had been murdered that day by firearms. As a resident of the UK, gun deaths are minimal and not part of our culture, so to read about actual victims (not just a short headline - or nothing at all, given the location) was, if this doesn't sound too morbid, quite nice - they aren't just a name and a blurred photo, they are people who were someone's child, brother, sister, lover. They are described by their friends and families, details found on social media, who the author met, talked to, consoled with, or was even shunned by.

The frightening this was that this was just a drop in the ocean - one day, 10 random victims.