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For Chicago sociology professor Amelia Emmet, violence was a research topic--until a student shed never met shot her. He also shot himself. Now hes dead and shes back on campus, trying to keep up with her class schedule, a growing problem with painkillers, and a question she cant let go: Why? All she wants is for life to get back to normal, but normal is looking hard to come by. Shes thirty-eight and hobbles with a cane. Her first student interaction ends in tears (hers) . Her fellow faculty members seem uncomfortable with her, and her ex--whom she may or may not still love--has moved on. Enter Nathaniel Barber, a graduate student obsessed with Chicagos violent history. Nath is a serious scholar, but also a serious mess about his first heartbreak, his mothers death, and his fathers disapproval. Assigned as Amelias teaching assistant, Nath also takes on the investigative legwork that Amelia cant do. And meanwhile, hes hoping shell approve his dissertation topic, the reason he came to grad school in the first place: the student attack on Amelia Emmet. Together and at cross-purposes, Amelia and Nathaniel stumble toward a truth that will explain the attack and take them both through the darkest hours of their lives.