"A school under siege - a community's response"
One Breath Away
Genres: Romance Suspense
Posted: July 30, 2012
Augie, short for Augustine, phones her mother Holly telling her that a man with a gun has locked her in a cupboard and is threatening her little brother. Along with Holly, who is hospitalized following severe burn injuries from a kitchen fire, we retrace the steps of those involved in this awful school day.
Snow in Iowa has blocked roads around the small town, so when 911 calls go out from a school that a Code Red lockdown is in place, the local police and other responders know that a tactical support unit cannot arrive in a short time. Meg is a police officer whose ex-husband has, fortunately, taken their daughter for an early start to school spring vacation. She works to contain the anger of the local parents, many of whom show up toting firearms, delegates work, fields calls from the media, particularly one creep of a reporter who used her to get a story before, and drives to check out any parent who hasn't shown up at the school gate... because that might be the man who is inside the building.
Mrs Oliver is a truly courageous teacher who despite her advancing years does her best to deflect the attention of the coward pointing a gun at little children, calms her class and provides them with leadership. She quite expects to die and just wants to tell her husband she loves him one more time.
Young Augie is brave beyond her years, and when her classmates break a window and run out to safety, she stays with her terrified friend and moves cautiously around the school trying to find her little brother PJ and get other kids out of the building.
Holly ran away from her father's farm in Iowa just as soon as she could, the boredom and hard work seeming set to drive her mad. Holly's father, Augie's grandfather, is now taking care of his grandchildren and he is the fifth voice describing events from a guardian's point of view, wondering why PJ has taken to calves and farms like a duck to water while Augie is determined to dislike everything. Mainly he wants his family to come out alive.
The sympathetic characters and tension, the puzzle of who is doing this and why, make ONE BREATH AWAY a very readable book. I compared it immediately to Lisa Gardner's The Third Victim which is also about a school siege, but that book deals with a spree shooting from the start which makes it a lot more distressing and difficult to read. Heather Gudenkauf was herself a student on campus at the University of Iowa during a classroom shooting, and the incident inspired this great story. The locality, the rural life and the cyclical nature of generations are well presented and I recommend ONE BREATH AWAY to adults or mature young adults equally.
Book Summary
On a bitter March day, as a sudden snowstorm envelops the small town of Broken Branch, Iowa, an unknown man with a gun enters the town’s only school and takes a classroom of children hostage. As awareness of the situation spreads, the panicked community is ready to do anything to protect their children, but can only watch and wait.
As a teacher with a long career behind her, Evelyn Oliver is ready to enjoy retirement with her loving husband. But now, faced with a crazy man armed with a gun, terrorizing her classroom, she’d rather die than fail to protect any of her students. But why is he doing this? Evelyn’s been scouring her mind but doesn’t recognize the intruder. Maybe one of the students is the key?
Holly Thwaite left Broken Branch and her family behind without a word eighteen years ago, vowing never to return. But after a debilitating accident leaves her recovering in a hospital in Arizona, she’s forced to send her children to her hometown to be looked after by their grandfather, the man she never wanted them to meet. Will Thwaite never understood why his estranged daughter, Holly, ran away all those years ago. But now that her children are in his care, he refuses to fail his daughter again. One way or another, Will is going to get his grandkids, P.J. and Augie, out of that school safely even if he has to go in and get them himself. What Will doesn’t know is that thirteen-year-old Augie is just as determined to rescue her little brother from the killer and help her classmates, even if it means putting herself in the crosshairs of the gunman.
Police officer Meg Barrett wants to know who the intruder is and why he’s doing this. Whoever it is, there’s no excuse for this. Meg should know. She’s had plenty of hardships herself. But with innocent lives at stake, Meg is prepared to risk her own life to save these hostages, although it means disobeying orders and taking on the gunman face-to-face.
As the standoff progresses and the snowstorm rages outside, anxiety and frustration start to build to dangerous levels. But everyone knows how precarious the situation is. One wrong move, even a breath, could have the most devastating of consequences.
Read an Excerpt
MIRA
July 1, 2012
On Sale: June 26, 2012
Featuring: Will Thwaite; Evelyn Oliver; Meg Barrett
400 pages
ISBN: 0778313654
EAN: 9780778313656
Kindle: B0080GUZDS
Paperback / e-Book