Nineteen Minutes

Synopsis:

Sterling is an ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens--until the day its complacency is shattered by an act of violence. Josie Cormier, the daughter of the judge sitting on the case, should be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened before her very own eyes--or can she? 

As the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show--destroying the closest of friendships and families. Nineteen Minutes asks what it means to be different in our society, who has the right to judge someone else, and whether anyone is ever really who they seem to be.

My opinion:

Jodi Picoult's books are always the same: something bad happens, we don't get to know all the details, and then there is a trial. And over the course of the trial and a series of flashbacks, the truth - and the true characters of the people involved - are revealed.

This one is no different. One morning, Peter Houghton walks into Sterling High and opens fire. Nineteen minutes, ten dead people and many wounded later, the shooting is over. But the aftermath has only begun.

The story spins together the strands of Alex Cormier, a county judge with an increasingly distant relationship with her teenage daughter Josie, who was unharmed with present during the shooting. Jordan McAfee, a defense lawyer from Picoult's previous books, is defending Peter. Patrick, the lead detective, tries desperately to piece together the aftermath of a horrible crime. And Lacu Houghton, Peter's mother, tries to figue out where she went wrong and how to keep loving a child who is a murderer.

It's a fascinating, heart-rending portrayal of people under stress, and while the buildup is intriguing, the big reveal at the end fell a little flat for me. Still a decent read, though.