Day One by Abigail Dean

 

At the end of every school year, there's the Day One ceremony.  The current students put on a program for the students who will be coming next year so that their first day is a memory of fun.  Mrs. Ward is everyone's favorite teacher, the one who makes every pupil feel wanted and who spends time preparing riveting lessons.  Marty is her daughter and was the town's golden girl until she failed her exams and didn't get a place at university.  Marty now works at the school teaching sports to the kids.

But today's program is different.  Part way through, when Mrs. Ward's class is performing, a gunman breaks in and starts firing.  Before all is done, people are dead and many are injured.  The dead include students and Mrs. Ward, who dies trying to save her class.  The local policeman's son, Oliver, is also among the dead.  The shooter, who had worked at the school for a while, is also dead.

At first the country is horrified and Marty and her mother are seen as heroes.  Mrs. Ward for her actions and Marty as the person who gave the first interview about what happened afterwards before she even found out her mother was dead.  But soon the conspiracy theorists start up.  Why wasn't the town's policeman there?  Did Mrs. Ward really save anyone?  What secrets does Marty hold?  Trent used to live in the town and remembers the shooter as a friend to a lonely boy.  He falls in with the radio commentator who heads up the conspiracy theorists and soon is chief among them.  What was the truth of Day One?

This is Abigail Dean's second novel.  Her first was Girl A and was a bestseller both in her native England and in the United States.  She has a way of writing suspense that is different from the average thriller.  Her work is full of secrets that are slowly revealed, changing the reader's thoughts about what happened from revelation to revelation.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.