There's a shooter with hostages in the women's health center, the last place in Mississippi that offers abortions. Everyone has their own reasons for being at the clinic today, but the gunman isn't making any distinctions. The police hostage negotiator is appalled to discover that his teenage daughter and his sister are inside, but he tries to keep that information to himself, because there's no way he's stepping down. We enter the story at the end of a long day, knowing that people have been killed, some wounded and released and some are still inside. The hostage negotiator is determined to bring the mayhem to an end before the SWAT team storms the building, endangering the lives of those he loves. Picoult does it again with her masterful handling of a controversial subject. She forces us to look at an issue from every angle, from every point of view. While not the first time I've read a book where the narrative works backward, I did have a little trouble getting into this one and keeping people straight at first. But I am familiar with Picoult's work and knew it would be worth it when everything came together. As usual, she didn't disappoint.