Books like Bang, Bang, You're Dead!

I was really disappointed with this book because it looked and sounded so promising, and had been on my 'to-read' list for quite a while.The premise of the novel is intriguing; a mysterious gunman takes a class hostage in a British school. Yes, it's been done before but I thought as it's based in Britain it might add something different to the tale. I was wrong. The to-ing and fro-ing between past and present events is extremely distracting (and quite frankly, annoying) and I felt didn't really serve much in the story as a whole, though it does perhaps give a good example of the amatuerish style of writing from the author. Mia, the protagonist, was so whiney and pathetic that it was a struggle for me to actually finish the novel! This novel had such great potential but was let down on so many levels. The story would have been good if there was more character development, especially with secondary characters, and if more evident research by Dhami had been depicted effectively regarding mental illness(es).Overall, disappointing. It's certainly no 'Hey Nostradamus!' by Douglas Coupland, let's put it that way.