July 8, 2024
In Driscoll’s pulse-pounding third thriller featuring Gemma Capello (after Shot Caller), the NYPD hostage negotiator tackles a case that hits uncomfortably close to home. When Gemma was 10 years old, she and her mother were taken hostage by armed robbers during a trip to the bank, and her mother was killed. On the 25th anniversary of her mother’s death, Gemma calls her father in hopes of distracting him from his grief, but her efforts are interrupted by news of a shooting at Brooklyn’s South Greenfield High School, which her nephew attends. Though she’s off-duty, Gemma rushes to the scene. She and the SWAT team easily apprehend the first shooter, but a second gunman manages to take a classroom hostage, forcing Gemma to figure out what, exactly, the teenager wants without setting him off. Over the course of her negotiations—which Driscoll illustrates with breathtaking panache, taking readers through the school room by room and floor by floor at Gemma’s side—Gemma connects the current shooting to the years-old death of a South Greenfield student. Driscoll approaches the potentially lurid material with admirable sensitivity, and maintains suspense throughout. Readers will clamor for the next installment. Agent: Nicole Resciniti, Seymour Agency. (May)This review has been updated with new bibliographic information.