Sunday, September 13, 2009

Book Review 13: My Father's Son by Terri Fields

This was a pretty good mystery with a kind of twist ending. Wasn't sure about it, but overall I liked it. Kevin Windor's parents are divorced. He spends weekends at his dad's house playing video games and just hanging out. Not that his dad doesn't have expectations for him as well. His dad is considered a computer genius, the video games they play are often ones that the company he works for has created and they get to play them before anyone else. Kevin's mom works hard every day to take care of Kevin, and prefers not to talk about his father. Kevin is a junior in high school, has a good friend named Jason, and a possible new girlfriend named Emily, his partner in Spanish class.

Things are going well until one day after school a breaking news report says the DB25 serial killer has been caught, and Kevin's father's face is flashed across the screen. At first Kevin can't believe it, he tries so hard to prove it's not true. He has issues with other people at school and in public because he looks just like his father. When his father doesn't try to get in touch, and even tells Kevin he doesn't want to see him, Kevin begins to wonder about his father. Then, DNA evidence links his father to the crime scene he was caught at. Kevin remembers that his dad had a laptop he'd hurriedly closed and not shown his son what was on it one time. He also loaned his father his jeep recently, when his father said his Lexus was in the shop. Now, was he using it to get to and from the crime scene with no evidence to connect him?

It seems like everything and everyone just makes Kevin so angry, and he starts lashing out so much that he is suspended from school and must take anger management classes.

I think this book was a good look at life in a crazy situation, and how a 17 year old boy handles it, or not. A quick, emotional at times, read. I think it would be a popular read for teens, but has kind of a scary subject.

The next book to read is Compound by S.A. Bodeen.