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Thirty-eight-year-old sociology professor Amelia Emmet is
returning to the classroom on the Chicago campus where she was shot ten months
ago. The shooter, a student she never
met, one with whom she had no contact with whatsoever, also shot himself. While recuperating and rehabilitating for the
last ten months, Amelia continued to ask herself Why? Why did Leonard Lehane shoot someone he
didn’t know, why her, and then why did he turn the gun on himself. Nathaniel Barber, a graduate student and
Amelia’s new teaching assistant, is obsessed with violence in society,
especially in Chicago and is obsessed with Amelia’s case; Nath, as Amelia comes
to call the awkward young man, hopes his dissertation topic will help Amelia
answer some of her questions, but as he quickly grows to realize, Amelia also
needs to heal, mind, body and soul, and there is only one person who can do
that…Amelia herself. Forming an uneasy,
unorthodoxed alliance, the two work together, and separately, to uncover the
answers to why Lehane chose Amelia to shoot, or did he? And why he took his own
life. As they begin their inquiries,
they find themselves in some very dark places at the prestigious Rothbert
University and some very dark places in their own lives, all leading to a very
surprising conclusion, one that even after it seems finished has one last
surprise for readers. The sharply
written prose and dialog seems to fit the crisp fall semester that is before
Amelia and Nath. Both have demons of
their own, unrelated to the shooting that must be faced if each hopes to heal
and move on with their lives. A
fast-paced narrative keeps the plot moving and the high-tension will keep pages
turning until the shocking, and emotional end is reached.
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