The day starts like any other at the Center, a women's reproductive health services clinic. Then, late in the morning, a desperate man bursts through the door brandishing a gun and taking the people in the clinic hostage. Rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and starts making a plan to communicate with the gunman --- only to realized that his fifteen year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic with Hugh's sister, Bex. These two are sharing the next hours of their lives with several other characters, including a doctor at the clinic, a woman who has gone for a follow-up diagnosis, and an anti-abortion protester who is in disguise (hoping to get evidence that the clinic is up to no good).
Picoult tells this story backwards, so you get story from the viewpoint of several characters throughout the day --- except told hour by hour, working backwards through the standoff. As each hour is rewound, you get to know the different characters and why they have come to clinic, as well as how they help each other through this horrifying experience. Picoult makes the characters feel so real that this almost felt like a nonfiction book about a real hostage situation. I have read other books by her and appreciate that she doesn't shy away from difficult issues and also that she can find different perspectives on those issues to show in one story.
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