“Mrs. Cass, we were hoping your son could answer a few questions about the girl who disappeared last night…”
Erika Cass has a perfect family and a perfect life. Until the evening when two detectives show up at her front door.
A high school girl has vanished from Erika’s quiet suburban neighborhood. The police suspect the worst–murder. And Erika’s teenage son, Liam, was the last person to see the girl alive.
Erika has always sensed something dark and disturbed in her seemingly perfect older child. She wants to believe he’s innocent, but as the evidence mounts, she can’t deny the truth–Liam may have done the unthinkable.
Now she must ask herself:
How far will she go to protect her son?
Print Length: 373 pages. Publisher: Hollywood Upstairts Press. Publication Date: 8 Oct 2019.
#1 Amazon bestselling author Freida McFadden is a practicing physician specializing in brain injury who has penned multiple Kindle bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels. She lives with her family and black cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe.
My Review:
I have only recently discovered Freida McFadden and The Perfect Son is the third book I have read from her back catalogue in the last month.
As a mother of two boys, I have always hoped they would grow into polite, well mannered, balanced, happy and healthy young men. I’ve protected them, defended them and guided them as best I can. However that is not the case for Erika Cass – the main character in this psychological thriller, The Perfect Son. Mother of two children, her oldest son Liam has displayed unhealthy and extremely worrying behaviour since kindergarten. Now in his mid-teens, a female student has gone missing, seemingly abducted and Liam was the last to see her alive.
The beginning of this book gripped me immediately. The dilemma Erika faced with her potentially dangerous son, trying to protect him from himself and stop him becoming a threat to others was interesting to read and the steps she took did start to verge towards implausible, yet the story was enjoyable and twisty.
I’m not sure I would have behaved how Erika did and this did slightly marr my enjoyment of the book and up until the final reveal this would have been another 5 star from me, but the story, in my opinion, became slightly unbelievable and fell at the final hurdle – reducing my rating to 4 stars.
Overall I would still recommend this book, as I read this together with a group from my online book club and the majority of them LOVED this ending.
