A bomb with an unknown payload (probably biological) is found hidden in the parking garage in a suburban mall, resulting in the building being locked down and quarantined. For at least a week. 
 At least? Yeah, because this is BOOK ONE and the first book is only a week, and it takes FOUR DAYS before the rioting and looting starts. Mall employees continue working, and caring about working the registers and busting shoplifters. Suspending as much disbelief as this book requires is HARD. Big plot holes. (view spoiler)[And seriously, nobody noticed that easily a thousand people had disappeared out of the mall? And nobody tried busting into the ice rink just because there was a sign up that said it was broken or closed or whatever? Really? (hide spoiler)] 
 Promising premise, poor execution. Things dragged and I think we could have easily made this a stand-alone; the ending really should have been maybe the halfway point. I like the idea of a small-scale apocalypse, affecting a closed community (like Megan Crewe's The Way We Fall), but this fell way short of the mark for me.