On a seemingly normal day, everything starts to go wrong.
All over the country, and the world, there have been people sick for the last week with something that feels flu-like, and includes appalling migraines. Now people are reaching the critical point of the illness: what temporarily relieves the pain of the headaches is killing people.
And a lot of people have guns.
What's especially notable about this book is that Hayton does it without making it a polemic on either side of the gun issue. It isn't about guns, or gun owners, being either good or bad, responsible or irresponsible. It's about what a new and nasty disease does, and the desperate measures people are driven to as they try to understand what's going on, and how to survive.
We follow two young high school students fleeing an active shooter at their school, a mother who's searching for her three-year-old son, carried off by her husband when he inexplicably took off in their car, shooting at the neighbors, and a young man, home from work with a terrible migraine when the pain gets so bad that no measures seem too extreme in getting the serious painkillers he clearly absolutely needs to have. How these people come together, in conflict and cooperation, is the core of this story.
It's worth noting that this is the first entry in a series. This episode comes to a reasonable conclusion, but it's clearly only the first episode.
Recommended.
I received a free electronic galley from the author and am reviewing it by my own choice.
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