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    Lockdown: A Novel of Suspense
    Lockdown: A Novel of Suspense
    Lockdown: A Novel of Suspense
    Audiobook10 hours

    Lockdown: A Novel of Suspense

    Written by Laurie R. King

    Narrated by Pilar Witherspoon

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Using a premise pulled from the headlines-the very real vulnerability of students and teachers-the bestselling author of the Mary Russell mysteries delivers a contemporary novel of psychological suspense. The various presenters at a local school career day prepare for a day in class, not knowing that someone with a thirst for revenge is in their midst.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJun 13, 2017
    ISBN9781501948794
    Lockdown: A Novel of Suspense
    Author

    Laurie R. King

    Laurie R. King is the Edgar Award–winning author of the Kate Martinelli novels and the acclaimed Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes mysteries, as well as a few stand-alone novels. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, the first in her Mary Russell series, was nominated for an Agatha Award and was named one of the Century’s Best 100 Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. A Monstrous Regiment of Women won the Nero Wolfe Award. She has degrees in theology, and besides writing she has also managed a coffee store and raised children, vegetables, and the occasional building. She lives in northern California.

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    Reviews for Lockdown

    3.5/5

    117 ratings38 reviews

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    • 4/5
      An excellent suspense story. Laurie R. King delivers once again. She continues to supply her fans with reliably good reads!
    • 4/5
      I probably wouldn’t have requested this book if I had realized it was about a school shooting, but I Laurie R. King is one of my favorite authors. And once I got back the disturbing subject matter, I really enjoyed watching the plots and personalities come together to a surprise ending.
    • 3/5
      I requested this book thorough LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, because Laurie R King is my favorite active mystery writer. I have read just about every novel she has written (at east 25 of them, anyway). When the book arrived (yay!) I discovered it was about a school shooting (noooooo!). I put off reading it for months because of this, and now have a total ARC backlog LOL.So I psyched myself up to power through, and I have to say Laurie R King did not disappoint. This book is less about a school shooting as most Americans imagine one, and more about a community. A diverse California town with people from lots of places with various stories--and more than one person may or may not have someone after them. This town has gangs and a gang killing in the last year. A girl has gone missing. A trial is coming up. The principal is new. The basketball coach is new. A girl misses her murdered sister, a boy his murderer cousin, another his missing friend.So many could be angry at so many others, while others may be hunted from across the globe. King weaves together all these stories and makes a community. It all seems very far-fetched, but how much do we really know about the people around us? Also, not gory.
    • 3/5
      Read this book in 2 days which is great for me considering the reading slump I've been in lately. I haven't read this author is a long time and after reading this one may return to her earlier books. The multiple story lines/characters were fine although I did lose who was who more than once. Liked the little mystery within the whole story and wonder if she had a "this is what actually happened" part written which she later took out of the novel. Will have to check her web site to see if this is further explained.
    • 3/5
      Laurie King does a great job really delving into each characters background stories. This novel was a little too realistic, considering all the school shootings in the last few years. However, her characters interactions was addicting to read, as well as the plot twist at the end. Overall I couldn't put the book down, and am also going to check out her other books.
    • 3/5
      It's hard to believe I've lived this long and never read one of Laurie King' novels, and I am not sure if this one is representative of her work. It took me some time to get "into" it, but I kept reading and was glad I did. I liked the portraits of the various characters and found it easy to keep track of who was who. This was a quick read, with sufficient suspense to keep me going. A good pick from the Early Reviewers selections.
    • 3/5
      While I enjoyed the overall plot and premise of this book, it was somewhat hard to read b/c there were so many different characters and the way the story was written it seemed like they didn't connect as well as they could have. I still would recommend this to others who enjoy her writing though.
    • 4/5
      A fast paced read set on a middle school campus on Career Day, this thriller draws you in, and builds tension for the school shooting foreshadowed by the title. Surprisingly, it also provides the backstory on numerous characters through flashbacks interwoven with the events of a single day. Well developed and interesting characters, and storylines. A worthy read and in some ways less disturbing than the subject matter would lead you to expect. Received as part of the Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      Lockdown by Laurie R. King is a thriller set on a middle school campus on career day facing tragedy. This timely novel carries us through the day anticipating the worst. Each multidimensional character has secrets and their involvement in the story is suspect. A tautly plotted novel filled with psychological suspense. Very relevant in the wake of the mass school shootings America has experienced. 4 out of 5 stars
    • 4/5
      This is a great, tight thriller that's a quick read all the way to the end. With a theme that likely scares many parents today, that of a school shooting, King draws upon newscasts and headlines to introduce frightening elements into the story. Character development is great as well -- you get drawn into the details of the lives of different characters, slowly, until you finally see how everyone fits into the whole of the book. Highly recommended for fans of suspense novels.
    • 4/5
      Laurie King is known for her modified Sherlock Holmes pastiches that are well written and usually centered around a foreign location and include a lot of nice detail about local customs, scenery and other researched information. This book is a complete departure, dealing with a school shooting. In setting up the scenario, King uses a handful of characters and some skipping around from one to the next. We are given a hint of what is to come, but there are some red herrings. The book finishes with the tension expected.This book was an Early Reviewer copy.
    • 4/5
      This story of a school shooting builds up suspense by having a series of very short chapters (some less than a full page), each focused on a different member of the school community. There are a large number of important characters and the list at the beginning of the book was very helpful. Even a full quarter of the way through the novel I found myself constantly referring to it. Along with the list, I kept wishing that a diagram of the school had been included. I found it a little difficult to visualize the events because I couldn't really place where the characters were at any given time. This may just be an individual fault on my part, but location was important to the story, and I did feel the need for a little clearer picture. All that said, I enjoyed the book and the way the author built up the suspense was effective.
    • 3/5
      There are a lot of characters in this book, and each has a compelling, interesting story; however, keeping track of them and their stories was challenging, as was the shifting timeline. The premise of a middle school in an impoverished community having a career day is interesting, and the commitment of the school leaders and members of the community to heightening the awareness of the students' futures is powerful. These people all have secrets, which are eventually revealed when they intersect at the conclusion. I didn't really connect with any of the characters, which lessened, for me, the impact of this book. My thanks to LibraryThing and the publisher for the opportunity to review this novel.
    • 2/5
      Different book from one of my favorite authors. Try as I could; I could not sustain my interest.
    • 4/5
      King is probably best known for her Mary Russell series, but this is a stand-alone psychological thriller. As the title implies, it focuses on an incident at a school – Guadalupe Middle School in San Felipe, California. The action follows the characters on one particular day, “Career Day,” when Principal Linda McDonald will bring in a variety of adults to talk to the students about various career options. King gives us a timeline for each chapter, taking us from just after midnight to shortly after 1:00 p.m. The narration moves from character to character by chapter as well. In addition to Linda, the reader learns something about her husband Gordon, Police Detective Olivia Mendez, the coach, the school janitor, a couple of the parents, and several of the students. In the back of everyone’s mind is the recent disappearance of Bee Cuomo, a sixth grader, and the previous year’s shooting death of Gloria Rivas. One child, in particular, is planning a large and important gesture on Career Day, and with all these threads of tension, King keeps the reader guessing as to what might happen. I thought a couple of the elements of the plot’s ending were just too conveniently pat, but I was still entertained throughout. My F2F book club will be discussing this book in March, and I’m eager to hear what others thought of it.
    • 1/5
      I normally love the writing of Laurie King however, the style of this book was such a departure from her norm that I couldn't get through it. It was choppy, switching from character to character never really giving me a chance to connect with any of them. I was very disappointed with this different style.
    • 3/5
      My favorite Laurie King novels are those about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, but I've enjoyed her standalone novels as well, so I was glad to get a copy of her new book, even though I was a little skeptical about the premise. It turns out I was right in my hesitation. This book is not at all up to King's usual high standards.Most of the book follows the large cast of characters hour by hour through career day at Guadalupe Middle School, starting just after midnight the night before and heading toward what is described in the preface as the "Guadalupe Middle School incident" (presumably a shooting). This tick-tock countdown method is meant, I think, to amp up the tension, but with many chapters being only a half a page or so, it ends up making the book feel choppy. The longest chapters are flashbacks into stories that may or may not matter and end up feeling like distractions. The theme of career day is that life—and school—is a tapestry, with lots of disparate parts coming together to create a unified whole. And I think King was attempting to create a book that feels like a tapestry, with elements that don't make sense in isolation but work when you step back and see the whole. And when I step back, I can see how most of the pieces fit to build tension or create mystery. Even though I can see what King was trying to do, the total effect is something of a mess. The characters are largely unconvincing, with students seeming older than they are a lot of the time and adults seeming much younger. The stakes around career day seem weirdly high—and not just because of the previous year's violence, which would be an understandable reason for tension. And there is simply too much going on.I appreciate that King is trying to do something outside her usual style here. (One of the reasons her Russell/Holmes series remains fresh is that she doesn't follow a formula.) But I can't recommend this.
    • 4/5
      I started reading Laurie King's Lockdown a month ago and a quarter of the way though it, I put it down. Not for the writing, but for the subject matter. I thought to myself, "we're headed towards a Columbine event..." I hate any mystery or thriller that deals with inflicting pain on young people. Picking it up today, perhaps toughened by recent events, I found that I was pretty much wrong. This is an unusually complicated tale of multiple mysteries. It's telling is well done, from brief third-person account, King makes many, diverse characters come alive brilliantly. What she doesn't do is bring conclusion to two main plot threads, which disappoints.
    • 5/5
      In my eyes, Laurie R. King can do no wrong. She has been on my Indispensables List for over two decades, and she is absolutely one of those writers whom I will follow anywhere. I doubt I would normally read a book about a school shooting; there are still too-fresh scars in this neck of the woods for me to choose such a subject for entertainment. (That's so in lots of necks of lots of woods; here it's because of Sandy Hook and twenty tiny dead children.) All the different strands of this story – the students, the parents, the teachers, the custodian, the killer among them - weave a stressfully tense story. The humor and normalcy of early events are deeply overshadowed by what you know is coming, and the fear of how bad it's going to be. Who among the characters you come to like, to care about, will still be standing at the end? How deep will the scars be? One of the hallmarks of a good murder mystery is that no stone is left unturned, and no secret is left unexposed. This is a sort of inverted murder mystery, and it comes to the same thing. Checkered pasts, private opinions, other lives – none of that is likely to survive the storm that is about to roll over this town. Scars? No one is getting out of this story without one. The blurb talks about the plot being ripped from the headlines … I hate that. I do. I had to stop watching "Law & Order" long ago, because it made me queasy to see real people's pain being used for yet another mediocre drama. But … Laurie R. King. There's a big difference between a thinly veiled fictionalization of something that just happened, where the people involved are probably still in pain, and this: a tale that is in a way a composite of true horrors without trying to cash in on any specific real grief. It's all the grief and anger and horror of all those senseless days. It's catharsis. I sincerely hope LRK continues to use her power for good. I trust her enough that – well, I read this. I don't think she'll ever lead me to a place I'll regret. Favorite quote: By Tuesday, she loved Guadalupe Middle School as ferociously as an elderly cat-lady with 712 runt kittens.The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.
    • 4/5
      I’ve read ALMOST everything Laurie King has written – every one of her Mary Russell books, most of the Kate Martinelli books and some of the stand-alone novels. I’ve loved most of them (especially the Russell/Holmes books). When I saw “Lockdown” – and how different it seemed to be from any of her previous works – I just had to read it.I must admit…. there were many days after I started it where I looked at the cover sitting on my nightstand…and did not pick it up. I wasn’t connecting to any of the characters and the book started off with such a feeling of “SOMETHING EXTREMELY BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN< NO IT’S REALLY BAD AND LIFE CHANGING AND EXTRA BAD…. but you just have to guess and guess and guess what that is and who it happens to/who the villain is for a really long time”. The lead in was REALLY long. And I really felt like I was being beaten over the head with this VERY BIG DEAL that I just had to wonder about was.“The car started up in the drive. (Had it only been seconds?) Sir backed, shifted, accelerated away down the street. (For the last time?) Brendan looked down, on this, the last (normal) morning of his (old) life, and saw that he was still gripping the toothbrush.” Foreshadowing, FOR sure.But then, interestingly, there was a separate story line that was beefed up – one with a supernatural element that while very out of place, was intriguing and worked to really draw me into the book. “Was it possible that his mind was so freaked out at the idea of Bee gone, it added a kind of chapter to the story on its own? A chapter where Bee didn’t get hurt or anything, but instead just sort of…moved sideways?” I LOVE the idea of “moving sideways” – and the section of the book dealing with the disappearance of a young girl…and where she might have gone caught me and kept me going (even though this storyline was then really left dangling and I just had to decide what happened as far as I was concerned.Now that I have finished “Lockdown” – it’s hard for me to summarize what this book was really about. It’s a story about a school crisis, about a school coming together during and after that event, a story of all of the children’s lives prior to the event, and a ghost story. It’s uneven and some of the characters voices sound very similar – but it’s one that I ended up enjoying and felt guilty about using as a coaster for my coffee cup one too many times.
    • 4/5
      Lockdown is wonderful novel that follows a group of people as their lives are unexpectedly interrupted over the course of one day. As the reader, you know that they will face adversity at some point, but you don't know when it will happen or what form it will take. Enough backstory is thrown in to make all of the central characters well-rounded and enjoyable. Most of them could have been the subject of their own novels and yet you get enough glimpses into their lives to make them feel complete. I can't say that the ending was a complete surprise, but it was a novel enough approach to still leave room for second-guessing up until it played out. Overall, I really enjoyed this story; much more than I thought I would.
    • 4/5
      I'm a big Laurie R. King fan. I love her Mary Russell books. When I saw that she'd written a standalone novel and that it was a part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, I immediately requested a copy. And I was not disappointed.As you might expect from the title, this story is set in a school. As you might also expect, something big is about to happen there. King is a great storyteller. To borrow a metaphor from this book, she's an expert weaver, pulling together several different characters' stories into one compelling page turner. I liked the characters and their back stories. And I was satisfied with the ending. Obviously, I can't reveal any of the plot lines without spoiling your reading enjoyment. I'll just say I whipped through the book in about two days and enjoyed every minute of it. Well done, Ms. King. I anxiously await your next book.
    • 4/5
      It’s a typical day at Guadalupe Middle School. Well, except that it’s Career Day. But just like any day, it starts with kids and teachers, principal and guest speakers, all preparing for a day of school. There’s nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary to mark this as the day when several lives will change forever. It’s just Career Day.But what everyone – Coach, Principal Linda, Officer Olivia, students Brendan and Esme and Chaco and Mina – don’t know is that a strange set of circumstances will convince a desperate man to take a desperate action.I’ve read several of Laurie R. King’s book before. I love her Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell series, but I’ve never read any of her stand alone titles. I was intrigued by this one, but then when I got it, I was beginning to have second thoughts. First of all, it’s a really big book. And second, a school shooting? Did I really want to read about that?Um, no. Not really. But I had already agreed to review the book. So I decided to at least give it a fair try.It was hard at first. I kept reading little bits here and there, maybe because I was waiting for the shooting to start. I’d flip forward and say, “Nope, everyone’s fine,” and quit reading. But I kept with it. She changes POVs between lots of different characters. I didn’t have any trouble keeping them straight, but the chapters were so short it made it harder to get drawn into the book. Finally around page 200! I was really into the story.It took me that long to realize that this book is not really about a school shooting. It’s about all the things that lead up to it, about all the people involved, all the lives that are touched, all the ways things could go differently, and everything that prepares us to be ready for when the real moment, the moment that matters comes.In the end, I liked this one much more than I thought I would at first. The more I think about it, the more I would recommend it. But only if you are prepared for the suspense and the subject. If it’s too upsetting for you, then definitely don’t read this one. 4 /5 stars
    • 4/5
      Lockdown is a harrowing story of a violent event at a school. It's filled with memorable characters who have unique and interesting backstories. It is these stories that comprise the vast majority of the book. The shooting is almost an afterthought and doesn't take place until far into the book. Almost everything else is prologue to this event. I have read many books by Ms. King, and find her to be a deft and masterful writer the majority of the time. This book is somewhat of a departure, both because it's not a part of any of her regular series, and because, while the writing in and of itself is high quality, the story is somewhat disjointed and doesn't really seem to lead anywhere. There are several fascinating subplots that sort of hang in the air, and the identity of the shooter doesn't really make any sense. Ms. King also seems to shy away from the reality of what would be the likely outcome in real-life shooting scenario, which is her prerogative as a writer, but it ended up feeling like this part of the story was sort of thrown in to simply add suspense. I really enjoyed the characters and backstories, but this isn't my favorite book by this author due to the plot somehow not really holding together cohesively.
    • 3/5
      Laurie R King's new novel of suspense, Lockdown,revolves around a special event at a middle school in California. The characters are memorable, the back stories quite interesting. Several of these characters seemed compelling enough to feature in their own story. The plot, while "pulled from the headlines", is less than satisfying. The conclusion, I wouldn't call it a climax, seems rather random. A "page-turner" only in the sense that I couldn't tell where the story was heading until it neared it's conclusion. Having previously read most of this author's works, I truly admire the writing and breadth of knowledge encompassed. Unfortunately, I would rate this as one of my least favorite. I don't think it benefited from the brief section featuring a character from one of the author's series novels.**I received a free advanced reader’s copy of this book through the LibraryThing Early Readers program
    • 4/5
      Lockdown is a well-woven thriller centered around a school shooting. Laurie R. King plucks and twines all the many threads into a whole tapestry of the incident itself. Taking a fraught topic, the author has written a masterpieces of characterization. The book is more than just the actual shooing, its a solid book that pulls the reader in and enthralls.I admit that I was nervous before reading this book due to the subject matter and the incident around which it revolves. However, it is treated both sensibly and sensitively. Definitely well worth the read.Full disclosure: I received an ARC through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.
    • 5/5
      Masterfully written by Laurie King, these novel of suspense will grab your interest from the very beginning. Through succinct and mostly short chapters, the reader is gradually introduced to the characters and their back stories. As the novel develops, the tension builds as secrets about each character are gradually revealed. Breaking points seem inevitable, and it is only a matter of time before the unspeakable happens. Career day at the school will be a day that won't soon be forgotten. A fateful decision will change the lives of many. In a split second, a peaceful assembly will become a scene of carnage. And then nobody's life will be the same. Engaging characters in a well-crafted plot combine for an enticing tale.
    • 3/5
      Lockdown by Laurie R King made me ecstatic that I am no longer a student, especially in middle school. Laurie R King presents a cast of characters before jumping into the story, but I missed that list and made my own as I read tidbits of each character. I love this method of writing where each character speaks or is described, very like Spoon River Anthology or Winnesburg, Ohio. The tension builds as the students, teachers, principal, and speakers gather for Career Day at the school. The title of the book foreshadows the terrifying event, but still the reader plunges forward in an effort to find the culprit. Ms. King convincingly portrays each of the characters and builds of sense of understanding, but many ideas scatter to the wind after chaos descends the school.
    • 5/5
      **This book was reviewed for Random House/Ballintine via NetgalleyMaster storyweaver Laurie R King has done it again. Lockdown may be a novel of suspense, but more than that it is a novel of humanity in all our myriad glory and debasements. It is a novel of disconnect, where communications break down. And a novel of connection, with the various threads converging into the incident at Guadalupe on Career Day. If but one thread had been cut short, or played out longer, or skewed a different direction, events may have played out very differently indeed. We are all stories- little stories, blending to make larger stories, building to glorious life epics with colossal casts. Lockdown is a vibrant mosaic of psychological suspense that will lure you in, snaring the mind and drawing the reader deep within. It is the weaving of a school on the verge of a life-shattering event, the second in only a scant handful of months. Things begin in a mundane enough manner. It is Career Day, a source of pride and stress for Linda, the principal who took over a neglected school rife with violence. On the surface, things have improved, rough as it has been. Beneath the surface though, on the flip side of that mosaic, that tapestry, one can see the abraded roughness, the snarled and tangled criss-crossing threads. There is a shy imaginative boy, recovering from the unsolved disappearance of his best friend only months before. There is the Englishman, a former merc with a clouded past, and his wife the school principal, whose baby Guadalupe is. There is a boy thrust too early into adulthood and sacrifice, as he takes care of his younger siblings while his mother works for a meagre wage. There's a young witness to a horrific murder, with people seeking to silence him, and his two friends, one the sister to the murdered girl. There's a boy crying out silently for help, pushed to his breaking-point. There's a man with a superiority complex and sense of entitlement the size of South Dakota, and an elderly man with tragedy lingering behind him.. Each thread, each tile, taken alone, is fascinating in its own right, but brought together they create a beautifully terrifying picture of the confluence of events that will change everyone, reader included. Once started, I read this book in almost one sitting. Ms King has woven a rich, intricate story with beautiful language and a deep, abiding lesson- we are all connected. This was my first experience with Ms King’s work outside of Mary Russell’s memoirs, which are just lovely. ????? Highly recommended
    • 5/5
      This is a story torn from too many recent headlines - a school in lockdown due to an active shooter on campus. However, what makes this story so compelling are the insights into many of the individuals associated with this school and the tragedy that unfolds there. The school is a melting pot of people who have a variety of personal stories that collide on the day in question. There is also an ending that I did not expect, making it a great summer read!