A Thousand Cuts

Police inspector Lucia May tries to uncover the reasons behind a teacher having killed five people at a school assembly before turning the gun on himself. Chapters alternate between the points of view of the witnesses and the inspector. Listening to students, teachers, and staff relate, in their own voices, the ongoing bullying aimed at teacher Samuel Szajkowski provides an intense listening experience. It's chilling to hear them relate pranks that quickly escalated to abusiveness without remorse. Less successful are the chapters in which a narrator tells Lucia's story as she begins to see parallels between her own circumstances and the those of the shooter. A chilling yet timely story of the consequences that can explode in a culture that ignores bullying. N.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Starred review from January 4, 2010
In the wake of a London school shooting, Det. Insp. Lucia May finds herself unable to accept the simple version of what transpired in Lelic’s outstanding debut—that Samuel Szajkowski, a new history teacher, gunned down two students and a colleague in an assembly hall before turning the weapon on himself. While Szajkowski was the subject of cruel pranks from his first day on the job, pranks that escalated to serious physical injury, May resists her supervisor’s directives to write a straightforward final report, and looks into a possible link between the massacre and an off-campus beating of a student. Artfully offering a range of perspectives on the events leading up to the fatal day, Lelic manages to make the murderer sympathetic as he sensitively explores the varying degrees of responsibility for the tragedy borne by others whose response to bullying was inadequate. This deeply human and moving book heralds a bright new talent.