Any parent will tell you that dropping children off at school requires endless faith in teachers and administrators—and their ability to handle situations that could easily spiral out of their control. Adding to this anxiety is the specter of school shootings, which are now common and random enough to create a whole host of troubling new questions: How much security is too much? Too little? Are the teachers and children ready to react? And if the shooter is connected to the school in some way, how are we supposed to detect the warning signs?
These are a few of the big questions author Laurie R. King attempts to tackle in her “novel of suspense,” Lockdown. In this standalone book, King sets aside her popular Mary Russell series to examine a present-day fictional middle school, its troubled student body, secretive staff, and hard-working principal who’s desperately trying to improve upon the institution’s checkered past. The novel opens with the revelation of an “incident” which causes the titular lockdown, but King then quickly throws her vehicle into reverse to explore the histories and secrets of its varied characters.