In the Crosshairs

A Novel by Helen Gladden

A missing student. A school in crisis. A principal caught in the crosshairs.

After two years of pandemic disruption, Carlisle High School principal Abbie Chambers is determined to make the new school year feel like a fresh start. Students are back in the halls, classrooms are full again, and normalcy finally seems within reach.

Then Abbie learns that sophomore Claudia Barrington has disappeared.

Claudia was last seen at home two days earlier, and no one knows where she went—or what may have happened to her. Detective Robert Henderson begins an exhaustive investigation, but evidence is scarce and promising leads go nowhere. As days become weeks and weeks stretch into months, Claudia’s absence casts an ever-deepening shadow over Carlisle High.

Abbie does everything she can to reassure frightened families, support her staff, and preserve a sense of safety for her students. But she knows a school is never insulated from the dangers beyond its doors. Grief, addiction, illness, accidents, and violence have all found their way into her community before.

Still, nothing prepares her for the moment gunshots erupt on campus.

With Carlisle High thrown into chaos and fear, Abbie must fight to protect the students entrusted to her—even as she finds herself caught in the crosshairs.

Praise for In the Crosshairs

“...both page-turning and thoughtful: a procedural that never loses sight of the human costs behind headlines and rumors. Highly recommended.”

—Valerie Saul, author of The Badass Widows: a Mystery

About the Author Helen Gladden is a retired high school and middle school principal, as well as a former English teacher. She grew up in Oakland, California and earned a B.A. in Rhetoric from U.C. Berkeley and an M.S. in Educational Leadership from California State University, East Bay. A member of a local writing group, she has enjoyed writing poetry over the years. Her work has appeared in the group’s self-published anthology and placed in a haiku contest sponsored by the San Francisco Examiner. Retirement has provided her the time to pen this novel, her first work of fiction. Helen lives with her husband in Northern California.

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