Bentley Little (The Academy) brings to life a new story of paranoia, inference and murder in His Father’s Son. Please note that this review does have a few spoilers.

This novel is about Steve Nye, a frustrated writer (literally) whose mediocre life is shaken up when his father is admitted to a psych ward after trying to kill his mother. After getting to know the Nye family, you’ll realize that they are normal-yet-dysfunctional in a way that any family might be; the mother is a devoted Christian while the rest of the family is not and the family doesn’t normally show affection to one another. Desperate for his father’s approval, Steve ends up trying to understand his father’s cryptic phrases and words in the hospital. Although his dad cannot semantically put words together due to his physical state, there are times when his dad is lucid. As a result, Steve places an almost unnatural importance on the phrase “I killed her,” to the point where he feels compelled to not only investigate, but also to “protect” his dad’s “secrets” by killing others himself.

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