If there's an issue that other writers might deem too delicate or incendiary to explore in a novel, chances are Jodi Picoult has boldly taken it on and crafted it into a gripping story that is both piercing and compassionate in its frank observations and shifting points of view. In Nineteen Minutes, Picoult explores the grim consequences of a high-school shooting and the string of events that preceded it. Told through the eyes of the troubled perpetrator, the judge assigned to hear the case, and the judge's teenage daughter, who is one of the survivors and a key witness, the book never shies away from the difficult questions such a tragedy raises.