On Monday, Principal Peter Galvin welcomes the committee that will evaluate Ribicoff High School for accreditation-just as someone guns down a student outside the main entrance. On Tuesday, homicide cop Abigail Teague tells him she fears that the shooting will incite a gang war. On Wednesday, student teacher Kim Dombrowik finds drugs in a student's locker, and there's a riot in the school cafeteria. Thursday really sucks. And the evaluation committee won't leave until Friday... The novel follows a principal, a student teacher and a female homicide detective on their journeys through the minefields of poverty, racism, and local politics to find a killer and stave off a full-scale gang war. While Laura Lippman's To The Power of Three and Jody Picoult's Nineteen Minutes have also dealt with a school shooting, Liskow, a former teacher, is the first to look at how such tragic events impact the teachers and students who inhabit the building and how the tragedy will change everyone who is involved, sometimes for the better, but usually for the worse.