My Father's Son

by Terri Fields

Genres: YA Mysteries & Thrillers; YA Family

Synopsis

WHAT IF YOUR FATHER ISN'T WHO YOU THOUGHT HE WAS?

"I turn up the volume as a woman at a news desk announces, ‘This just in…the alleged DB25 monster has been arrested.' Good. The camera switches from the anchor to a mug shot…and it is my face—or at least my face as it will look thirty years from now…A new image replaces the full-screen mug shot as I see two cops hustling my handcuffed father into the back of a police car." Kevin has to face the worst imaginable possibility: that his father may be the man responsible for a series of vicious killings. How much does he really know about his father?

"A fast-paced and sometimes disturbing look at families and violent crime and its many victims, seen and unseen." - Kirkus Reviews

Release date: September 2, 2008

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Print pages: 272

Sample

My Father's Son

breaking news
Ten minutes. Just ten minutes, and then I'll start my pile of waiting homework. I stretch out on the sofa; Mom's not home, so feet up is okay. I press the TV remote, and ominous music with bold words, "BREAKING NEWS," fills the screen. I better pay attention. It could be good for extra credit in Government tomorrow.
I turn up the volume as a woman at a news desk announces, "This just in. In a spectacular development, the alleged DB25 Monster has been arrested. Police apprehended him trying to escape through the bathroom window of 32-year-old Joyce Garlen's apartment. Officers found Ms. Garlen bound and badly beaten, her body bearing the signature DB25 markings. As with other DB25 victims, she had allegedly been tortured and branded before beingleft to die of her injuries. Ms. Garlen was still alive when police reached her, and she has been rushed to John C. Lincoln Hospital, where she is now in a coma. She is the eleventh known DB25 victim in the tri-state area over the past two years."
Then the camera switches from the anchor to a mug shot of the monster they caught. And it is my face--or least my face as it will look in 20 years. My same thick black hair, my same long eyelashes, my same brown eyes. A new image replaces the full-screen mug shot as I see two cops hustling a handcuffed man into the back of a police car.
Text copyright © 2008 by Terri Fields