My Father's Son

by Terri Fields

Overview

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429920070
Publisher:	Roaring Brook Press
Publication date:	09/02/2008
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	1,057,717
File size:	217 KB
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

TERRI FIELDS, author of more than fifteen books for young readers including HOLDUP, taught high school English for many years. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

Terri Fields is the author of more than a dozen books, including middle-grade novels such as Holdup and After the Death of Anna Gonzales. She is also an educator, and was named--among other honors--Arizona's Teacher of the Year and selected to the All-USA Teacher Team. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

Read an Excerpt

My Father's Son
breaking newsTen 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

Editorial Reviews

Gr 7 Up

In the range of things that can make one a misfit in high school, having a father who has been arrested on suspicion of being a serial killer is probably at the top of the list. Kevin Windor, 17, finds himself in that situation when his dad is apprehended at a crime scene where a woman has been brutalized in the manner of the DB25 Monster, a killer credited with 11 murders. Kevin cannot imagine how his loving, tech-savvy father could possibly be guilty, but lingering secrets about his parents' marriage and divorce and Dad's past eventually convince him that these ugly accusations may be true. His social relationships fall apart as the world dubs him Monster Junior; his dream girl ends up in his best friend's arms; he gets suspended several times; and tension grows as he and his mother face this horror. The guilt or innocence of Greg Windor remains a mystery through most of the book, leaving readers on the edge of their seats. Some of the dialogue seems strained, and Kevin's reversal of opinion about his father halfway through the story is abrupt. Still, fans of Sean Olin's Killing Britney (S & S, 2005) and Elaine Marie Alphin's Counterfeit Son (Harcourt, 2000) will be pleased to discover another novel that will raise goose bumps on the backs of their necks.-Nora G. Murphy, Los Angeles Academy Middle School

School Library Journal

High-school junior Kevin Windor leads the most normal of lives, until the day his father is arrested for a particularly brutal series of murders. The evidence-he was caught climbing out the window of a victim-is strong. Kevin and his mother are taken by surprise; except for a dysfunctional relationship with his own parents, Greg Windor seemed like a decent man. At first, Kevin staunchly defends his father, but when DNA evidence provides additional proof of guilt, he loses faith in him. Kevin's first-person narrative mostly rings true but never completely captures the full horror of the situation, as friends turns their backs on him and he lashes out at others in anger and frustration, and begins to question his relationships with everyone else he knows. Although the surprising conclusion seems a little contrived after the believable realism of the rest of the tale, this is still a fast-paced and sometimes disturbing look at families and violent crime and its many victims, seen and unseen. (Fiction. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews