內容簡介
秋日的某天，這個婦產科診所的一天跟往常一樣開始，不久後卻闖入了一個絕望的歹徒，帶槍脅持診所裡的所有人。警方的談判專家Hugh McElroy趕到現場，在準備開始和歹徒協商之際，他的手機收到了好幾封訊息，McElroy一開才發現原來自己十五歲的女兒也是人質之一。
接下來的幾個小時，McElroy的女兒、壓抑自己的恐懼繼續為病人服務的護士、為了信仰而從事婦產科的醫生，他的信仰卻將受到嚴重的打擊、佯裝成病人的反墮胎運動人士、到診所墮胎的女性，還有McEloroy自身，將度過難忘艱難時光。
以《姊姊的守護者》、《事發的十九分鐘》等作品聞名全世界的作家茱迪．皮考特，再次帶著精彩作品回歸文壇，書中談及頗具爭議性的話題─墮胎，女性和腹中胎兒的權益，有可能取得平衡嗎？本書勢必將帶起一陣討論，也希望可以帶來和解。
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things returns with a provocative, masterfully written new novel.
A powerful and provocative new novel about ordinary lives that intersect during a heart-stopping crisis.
The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center—a women’s reproductive health services clinic—its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage.
After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic.
But Wren is not alone. She will share the next and tensest few hours of her young life with a cast of unforgettable characters: A nurse who calms her own panic in order save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester disguised as a patient, who now stands in the cross hairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard.
Told in a daring and enthralling narrative structure that counts backward through the hours of the standoff, this is a story that traces its way back to what brought each of these very different individuals to the same place on this fateful day.
The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center—a women’s reproductive health services clinic—its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage.
After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic.
But Wren is not alone. She will share the next and tensest few hours of her young life with a cast of unforgettable characters: A nurse who calms her own panic in order save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester disguised as a patient, who now stands in the cross hairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard.
Told in a daring and enthralling narrative structure that counts backward through the hours of the standoff, this is a story that traces its way back to what brought each of these very different individuals to the same place on this fateful day.