"A middle school teacher leaves home one morning and never arrives at his job. He leaves behind his briefcase and his phone, along with photographs of some of his female students. Across town, a detective on Santa Rosa's Violent Crimes Investigations team joins a colleague from the narcotics division as they investigate the killing of a dealer and local heroin smuggling operation. As the two cases converge in unexpected ways, secrets rise to the surface,...

"After calling off her engagement in wake of a tragic revelation, Yūko Moriguchi had nothing to live for except her only child, four-year-old Manami. Now, following an accident on the grounds of the middle school where she teaches, Yūko has given up and tendered her resignation. But first she has one last lecture to deliver. She tells a story that upends everything her students ever thought they knew about two of their peers, and sets in motion...

Lovelock, Nevada. A boy walks into the fire station, pale with the shock of a grisly discovery. By day's end, the body burning in the desert hills is identified as local math teacher Adam Merkel. A seemingly unremarkable man, he left a university professorship in Reno to teach middle school, but connected with just one of his students: Sal Prentiss, a lonely sixth grader who lives with his uncles on a desolate ranch in the hills. Sal found Adam's...

In 1983, students and parents at a suburban Bratislava middle school must decide whether to go against new teacher Miss Drazdechova, a high-ranking official of the Communist Party who is tying pupils' grades to how helpful their families can be with favors.