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    The Good Father: A Novel
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    The Good Father: A Novel
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    The Good Father: A Novel
    Audiobook12 hours

    The Good Father: A Novel

    Written by Noah Hawley

    Narrated by Bruce Turk, Arthur Morey and Ryan Gesell

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From the award-winning creator of the TV show Fargo and author of the bestseller Before the Fall, an intense, psychological novel about one doctor's suspense-filled quest to unlock the mind of a suspected political assassin: his twenty-year old son.

    As the Chief of Rheumatology at Columbia Presbyterian, Dr. Paul Allen's specialty is diagnosing patients with conflicting symptoms, patients other doctors have given up on. He lives a contented life in Westport with his second wife and their twin sons-hard won after a failed marriage earlier in his career that produced a son named Daniel. In the harrowing opening scene of this provocative and affecting novel, Dr. Allen is home with his family when a televised news report announces that the Democratic candidate for president has been shot at a rally, and Daniel is caught on video as the assassin.

    Daniel Allen has always been a good kid-a decent student, popular-but, as a child of divorce, used to shuttling back and forth between parents, he is also something of a drifter. Which may be why, at the age of nineteen, he quietly drops out of Vassar and begins an aimless journey across the United States, during which he sheds his former skin and eventually even changes his name to Carter Allen Cash.

    Told alternately from the point of view of the guilt-ridden, determined father and his meandering, ruminative son, The Good Father is a powerfully emotional page-turner that keeps one guessing until the very end. This is an absorbing and honest novel about the responsibilities-and limitations-of being a parent and our capacity to provide our children with unconditional love in the face of an unthinkable situation.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMar 20, 2012
    ISBN9780307970268
    Unavailable
    The Good Father: A Novel
    Author

    Noah Hawley

    Noah Hawley is a screenwriter, filmmaker and photographer. He has directed two short films for the Fox Searchlab new director development program. His first novel, A Conspiracy of Tall Men, was optioned by Paramount. Noah Hawley adapted the screenplay. He has published stories in The Paris Review. He lives in San Francisco.

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    Reviews for The Good Father

    3.5/5

    196 ratings33 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Mystery, tragedy, lament, all in one well-told tale that's very similar to Defending Jacob by William Landay, both of which were published in 2012 (coincidence?). The plot works backwards from the assassination of a charismatic liberal Democratic presidential candidate by Daniel Allen, the twenty year old son of a divorced doctor. Paul, the father, has remarried and now is immersed in his work and his second family life, with young twin sons. The story is told from both perspectives, and it becomes obvious there's no clear-cut cause for the murder. There's an informative recap of the misdeeds of serial killers, from Charles Whitman to Jared Loughner, that seems to straddle the thoughts of father and son. Daniel leaves college and takes off on a solitary cross-country drive, never to find either himself or a purpose for his life. Paul tries to justify his abandonment of his son without taking responsibility, and, indeed, as he ponders, many boys come from broken homes and never killed anyone. The book's ending is so sorrowful, so affecting - Noah Hawley should be read by everyone who can appreciate a novel's ability to open the reader's heart and leave it raw and bleeding.Quotes: "The defining mood of LA is desperation. It's a feeling that somewhere, someone else is getting the break you deserve.""America was a country that believed that crime was who a person was, not just what they did. In this light there could be no such thing as rehabilitation, just punishment.""You want to know the reason he pulled the trigger? Don't you see? Understanding the reason makes killing reasonable."
    • 5/5
      Noah Hawley has written brilliantly about a subject that few of us consider when a seemingly senseless, horrific crime occurs: the family of the alleged perpetrator. Paul Allen is a renown rheumatologist when his son, Daniel, from his first marriage is accused of killing a popular Democratic candidate for president. Paul is wracked with guilt about this son whom he left in California with his first wife when he moved east and established a new life with a new family. He refuses to accept that his son committed the crime, and attempts to exonerate him using medical procedural approaches that have served him and his patients so well in determining the cause of their symptoms. He thoroughly researches cases of murders and assassinations that have occurred in the past, which adds another compelling layer to this extraordinarily good novel. Paul and his family are reviled by the press, people in the community and his colleagues. The emotional toll on his marriage is compelling and realistic. This is a book I will long remember and highly recommend.
    • 2/5
      It seemed endless. I mean, some nice writing, but I could have gotten the point with a third of the words.
    • 5/5
      Amazing.This is the story of Paul Allen, whose son has assassinated a high profile candidate on the road to becoming President of the U.S. Dr. Allen cannot accept that his son is guilty. He searches to understand what happened, what was motivating his son's behaviour. He blames himself because he had divorced his son's mother and moved across the country. He searches for facts, and for meaning. This is a very moving story about a father's love, and about the society we live in.
    • 5/5
      Powerfully painful and realistic. There are some things in life that you just can't accept no matter what the reality is; this father can't accept what his son has done. I am currently going through a life change that I just can't accept and so many of the father's tortured thoughts and feelings echoed my own that it was eerie.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This was one of the best books I've read in awhile. It's a story of a father of a kid accused of assassinating a popular national candidate. And of the kid. And it's really wonderfully told.
    • 4/5
      Gripping from start to finish, with a classic American economy of language (think Richard Ford, John Steinbeck or Chuck Palahniuk) that drives the story on. The three stranded structure to the book was a clever way to get the whole story across, switching between the father's attempts to make sense of his son's actions, a narrative that reveals the son's trajectory and case studies of other famous crimes. As I was reading, I thought what a good film or mini series it would make, then read the author blurb and understood why.
    • 3/5
      Dr Paul Allen is a happy family man. His whole life changes when he hears the news that his eldest son has killed the next president of the United States.My Thoughts:I get the point of this book. It made me think and any parent will know where this book is coming from. I would myself move mountains for my two lads. Would I or could I believe that either of my lads are capable of such a crime. No is my answer and yes I would do what Paul has done in the story. So yes I get the point of this book.My problem is that I didn't enjoy the book and didnt really like the story. I found the book quite disturbing and really quite depressing. The story started quite well and I settled into it but I started to lose the way. I was hoping that perhaps the story turned out to be a bit more of a thriller. I was thinking along the lines of a Jodi Picoult book where the reader has the dilemma what would they have done, and then perhaps at the end of the book a humdinger if a court case. This book was very much along the same lines as 'We need to talk about Kevin' another book that questions where did the parent go wrong. Not really for me but at times I was interested and at other times I couldn't have cared less. Not sure who I would recommend this book to as I feel that the back bone of the story was promising but I feel it fizzled out with a lot of ramblings by the narrator.
    • 5/5
      This is an amazing book. Hawley takes a situation that is far beyond what anybody could imagine going through and makes it entirely believable. What would you do if you were the parent of someone accused of assassinating a presidential candidate? This is what Paul Allen has to face as his world changes forever with an assertive knock on his front door.Hawley smoothly integrates into his story detailed research into the lives and families of past killers which Allen scours in his frantic attempts to understand himself and his relationship with the son he must accept he never really knew. There is one rather glaring factual error in his research that I would call him out for if the rest of the book were no so good. I the first chapter on my Kindle and was hooked. It is was a book that I had to read every spare minute I had.
    • 5/5
      This was a reading group book and I didn't expect much but it was excellent. A book to make you think but don't expect answers.
    • 3/5
      I appreciated the history of other assassinations and the fiction of this story, but I had trouble bouncing back and forth between chapters of history and chapters of fiction. The story is hard to bear, as a parent.
    • 3/5
      I was a little confused as to whether this book was fact or fiction at times, due to the details of previous assassinations, but discovered that the author has combined the two to create his story. A good book.
    • 3/5
      This book was just a lot longer than it needed to be.
    • 3/5
      Die Geschichte beginnt an einem Donnerstag, traditionell der Pizzaabend der Familie Allen. Paul Allen, Chef der Rheumatologie des Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, ist in 2. Ehe mit Fran verheiratet. Zur Familie gehören die quirligen 10-jährigen Zwillinge Alex und Wally.Zeitweise gehörte auch Daniel, Pauls Sohn aus 1. Ehe dazu, doch nachdem er sein Studium geschmissen hat, reist er jetzt durch die USA. Paul und er haben sich nach der Trennung nicht viel gesehen. Während Familie Allan Pizza isst, laufen die Fernsehnachrichten. Es wird berichtet, dass der Präsidentschaftskandidat Seagram erschossen wurde.Als Tatverdächtiger wurde Daniel festgenommen. Noch währendPaul und Fran fassunglos die Nachrichten verfolgen, klingelt es an der Tür und Paul wird von 2 Agenten des Secret Service abgeholt. Paul erfährt, dass Daniel sich Carter Allan Cash genannt hat. Er beschließt, Daniels Unschuld zu beweisen. Er beschäftigt sich mit Attentätern, doch es wird Monate dauern, bis er ein vollständiges Bild der Ereignisse hat. Berührendes Debüt. Kaufen!
    • 3/5
      Cripes, this was a hard read, in an emotional sense. I'm now pretty much paralyzed with fear over every parenting decision I will ever make, so thanks for that!It was definitely a page-turner, the story feels very compelling. A young drifter assassinates a presidential candidate, and this is the story of his father's attempt to piece together what happened in his son's life that brought the young man to the point where he would murder someone. My biggest complaint is that sometimes the prose got a little too purple.As these books tend to go, it's very much about the psychological progress of both the father (in the present time of the story) and the son (as told in a combination of journal entries and flashbacks), and not so much the Law&Order version of the mechanics of the crime. There are also several chapters that reflect on other famous (real) assassinations (or attempts).It was a decent read, but certainly not uplifting.Grade: B+Recommended: I think it's an interesting look at why (or non-why) people can get to mental places where they commit these kinds of crimes, but it is a little emotionally grueling to get through
    • 2/5
      I was a bit disappointed in this book. From reading the book summary I thought this would be a thrilling book but it certainly wasn't. My main problem with this book is that the chapters in which the author writes about other "famous murderers" were much more interesting than the story the author was trying to tell about Daniel Allen. I would get really hooked in reading the chapters about Timothy McVeigh, John Hinckley Jr., and others, that when Daniel Allen's story came back around I just wasn't interested in it anymore. Sometimes it felt like the author ran out of material on his story that he started writing about real murderers. To me it didn't enhance the story, it only distracted from it. I do have to say that my favorite part of the book was the epilogue. I felt like the epilogue was beautifully written and the most interesting part of the book.Overall this book was only eh to me. I am not sure that I would recommend this to anyone.
    • 4/5
      So I read this earlier this summer, and I liked it as a good perspective on what its like to be a "part time" parent. The main character is a professional who got divorced when his son was young, and is dealing with the fact that his son may have been involved in a senseless act of violence. The story touched some cords, but reinforce my experience that the best parenting is really just "being there". Anyhow, this week, with the horrible violence in Aurora, I remembered this story. The basis of the story, a young man with a basically normal upbringing, does something horrible, was played out in real life. What do his parents do? feel? what would you feel? I think this is a unique story, sad and well thought out.
    • 4/5
      What makes a young person kill someone- in this case a presidential candidate. This is the question that Paul Allen, the father in the title, is faced with when his son is accused of this murder, and of course he finds it difficult to believe his son Daniel could have killed this man. He is a respected doctor living with his second wife and two boys, used to solving medical diagnoses. Daniel is the son from his frist marriage who lived with Paul's former wife but for a time travelled back and forth to spend time with Paul and his new family. Paul embarks on a journey to try and discover what happened and why. The book is told in two voices. We are involved in the thought processes of both Daniel and Paul. It tells of the fathers journey and it tells of the journey Daniel made across America leading up to the event , after he dropped out of college, to try and discover who he was. I really felt for Paul as he comes to realise that he does not really know his son, and looks back at his life and all the decsions that he made and wonders what he could have done differently. He loses his certainty and has to face the fact that his son could in fact be guilty. It was such a hard journey to travel. It was a very powerful story, in the same vein as Defending Jacob which I have also read and enjoyed.
    • 1/5
      The storyline of this book has potential - how does a father react when his son is accused of assassinating a presidential candidate? The relationship between this father and son is already so estranged, it's hard to believe that the father is certain of his son's innocence. He doesn't know his adult son at all and, in fact, barely saw or knew his son during his formative years. Dad tries to find some other explanation so that he won't have to face the obvious truth - that his son is guilty. The story shifts back and forth between present-day investigation and flashbacks to the mistakes he made as a father. The son is "heard" in chapters describing what he was doing and thinking in the years before the assassination, when he was estranged from his family, and through his diary. Neither character is likable. Particularly annoying was the father's penchant for stating detailed facts about other assassinations - that he might be an assassination buff is inconsistent with his life an over-worked doctor with a new wife and two young sons. The story is neither credible nor surprising.
    • 4/5
      Wow! This is a very good book. The story is compelling and the writing is excellent. I really didn't know where it was going. Daniel is accused of shooting and killing the Democratic presidential nominee. His father, the title character, is determined to prove he didn't do it. But he is consumed with guilt because he and Daniel's mother split when Daniel was very young and lived on opposite coasts. If he did do it, why? I don't want to give the plot away. Except for a few convenient coincidences toward the end, the plot is excellent and the pacing is very good. All in all a great read.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book. I think the only mistake was he mixed up Phoenix with Tucson where the 2011 shooting occurred. Rich in family drama and history.
    • 4/5
      I could hardly put this down because I kept wondering how on earth the family, and most especially the "good father" was going to make it through everything that was happening. It's a book that in some ways reminded me of Defending Jacob, another current book that I finished in the last month or so. Difficult, disturbing, fascinating---when the father is the narrator you are just plain torn by his thought processes---this intelligent thoughtful doctor used to puzzling out problems and yet here was a problem he was totally unprepared for----where did he fit in as a father to this son of his? How would anyone react to such a happening in any reasonable sort of way?
    • 5/5
      The Good Father by Noah HawleyPublished by DoubledayPublication date: March 20, 2012ISBN: 978-0-385-53553-3At the request of Doubleday, an ARC TPB was sent, at no cost to me, for my honest opinion. Synopsis (from publisher):An intense, psychological novel about one doctor's suspense-filled quest to unlock the mind of a suspected political assassin: his twenty-year old son.As the Chief of Rheumatology at Columbia Presbyterian, Dr. Paul Allen's specialty is diagnosing patients with conflicting symptoms, patients other doctors have given up on. He lives a contented life in Westport with his second wife and their twin sons—hard won after a failed marriage earlier in his career that produced a son named Daniel. In the harrowing opening scene of this provocative and affecting novel, Dr. Allen is home with his family when a televised news report announces that the Democratic candidate for president has been shot at a rally, and Daniel is caught on video as the assassin. Daniel Allen has always been a good kid—a decent student, popular—but, as a child of divorce, used to shuttling back and forth between parents, he is also something of a drifter. Which may be why, at the age of nineteen, he quietly drops out of Vassar and begins an aimless journey across the United States, during which he sheds his former skin and eventually even changes his name to Carter Allen Cash.Told alternately from the point of view of the guilt-ridden, determined father and his meandering, ruminative son, The Good Father is a powerfully emotional page-turner that keeps one guessing until the very end. This is an absorbing and honest novel about the responsibilities—and limitations—of being a parent and our capacity to provide our children with unconditional love in the face of an unthinkable situation. My Thoughts and Opinion: Outstanding! This may be the book of 2012!! Could not put it down!!This novel was written in a first person narrative through the eyes of a father about unconditional love, guilt, pain, denial and looking in every corner for that glimmer of hope. Moving!!! The author interweaves into the story real life events, that at times, I felt I was so caught up in the story that it read like a non-fiction. Engrossing!! When or can a parent stop loving unconditionally? The novel had me asking myself how I would feel if this was to happen to my family? Thought provoking! This author writes an emotional yet disturbing story about today's culture and fate of families. The research was phenomenal, bringing in past real life incidents that mirrored the fiction of the story line. When does a parent finally accept the truth? Are parents to be blamed? Are they victims too when the unimaginable is brought upon a family? Emotional!!! Until reading this novel, I never gave any thought to one incident that occurred in real life. But after reading the facts, my thinking changed, and that was quotes from a book written by one of the Columbine shooter's mother. This book will stay with me for a long time, one that will not be forgotten. Well written, character development superb, suspense extreme and a page turner. Brilliant!! As a parent, touched me to my core. Heart wrenching!! A powerful read!! This book, at least my opinion, is off the charts!! Piercing!! My Rating: 5+
    • 5/5
      In this intense psychological examination of parental angst, Noah Hawley helps us crawl immediately inside the mind and skin of Dr. Paul Allen, a noted diagnostician whose 20 year old son from a former marriage, and with whom he has not been in close contact for many years, is accused of killing a popular US Senator, considered a shoo-in to become the next president.The father immediately goes into denial - NOT MY SON -- and sets out to prove his innocence. But Hawley also gives the reader an eye-opening look into the mind and motivation of the son. The story alternates between the two points of view, portraying how the life-long separation has impacted both of them. The exquisite, aching prose shows us all the emotions each man is confronted with as they work through their ambivalence toward each other. At the same time, we feel the strong inner struggle of the father as he tries to come to grips with the overwhelming evidence that his son did in fact kill another human being, and his disillusionment with his own inability to use his superb diagnostic skills to get to the WHY.As the story marches forward, we are drawn in and cannot put it down. Riding the roller-coaster of emotions leads to an inevitable ending that the reader can see coming, but which we are as reluctant to accept as the main character. It's tightly plotted, with intensely drawn characters. The setting is almost incidental, but there is nothing extra in this one. Every word is accurately and intentionally chosen to present us with a story any parent hopes will only ever be fiction.
    • 4/5
      There are two books that published recently, Defending Jacob, by William Landay and The Good Father by Noah Hawley, that deal with fathers struggling with the accusation that their sons committed murder.In Landay's novel, an assistant district attorney's teenage son is accused of killing his classmate. In The Good Father, Dr. Paul Allen's estranged college drop-out son is arrested for killing a senator, a popular family man on his way to winning his party's presidential nomination.Allen divorced his son Danny's mother when Danny was a young boy. He left them and moved across the country to take another job. He remarried and began a new family, now father to twin boys. Danny spent time with his dad and his new family, summer vacations, but he was basically raised by his mother, a woman who was prone to "intense manic interest followed by long stretches of epic boredom", as Danny was.Paul is shocked when he and his wife see on the news that Danny is the one arrested for killing the senator. He cannnot believe that his son did this; there must be a mistake. He hires a lawyer for his son, but his son will not cooperate. Danny is being held in federal custody and no one is allowed to see him.Paul becomes obsessed with proving that his son is part of a conspiracy, a fall guy for the murder. He travels across the country, trying to piece together the last few years of his son's life; where he was, who he met, what he did.This obsession endangers his marriage, and he and his new family are hounded so much, they move to a rural community in Colorado to escape and start over. His wife is patient, but she firmly tells him that if Danny will not cooperate, they must let him go and concentrate on saving their own two sons.Hawley is a good writer, he really makes the reader empathetic to Paul's pain and anguish. He writes a great line, "Father and sons. What we wouldn't give to trade places with our boys, to absorb their suffering and ease their pain."And yet here is my thought on that. Dr. Allen divorced Danny's mother because he couldn't take living with her anymore, that she may have suffered from depression. But he thought it was OK to leave his young son to be raised by her alone, while he starts a new life far away. Would it have been better for his son if he had his father around growing up? If he had made that sacrifice for his son, would things have turned out differently? I think that is something that Paul will have to live with for the rest of his life.The Good Father haunts you with its sadness and despair, with a puzzling mystery thrown in. Did Danny kill the senator or was he a pawn in a conspiracy? It makes you uncomfortable, and gets you to think that you may not know your own child, the things he has gone through, what he is thinking. I do like that we get to see what Danny has gone through the past few years, and how he got to where he sadly ended up.
    • 4/5
      MY THOUGHTSLOVED ITWhat would you do if you saw your son on the news, blamed for a horrible crime? When Dr. Paul Allen sees his son on the news, accused of shooting the Democratic presidential nominee, he is in shock. Daniel has always been a decent kid and even though he has had some rough years as a child of divorce, he hasn't been a problem. Like most kids at twenty, he is searching for himself and has dropped out of college. Told in alternating voices between Paul and Daniel, this thriller is full of action that doesn't stop. You can tell something is not quite right with Daniel as he rambles through his story, while his father preciseness as clinical diagnostician really comes out to play. I enjoyed this story immensely with all of the twists and turns to the end which was quite exciting. While Paul seems to examine his first marriage and tries to understand what went wrong there and how that affected Daniel, you can see his years of medical training come out where he must search for clues in his patients and their undiagnosed diseases. He applies that same meticulous approach to finding out the truth in Daniel's life. This is a story that happens around us daily but a lot of times, we just don't hear about it in the media.
    • 3/5
      How would you react if your son was accused of assassinating a leading candidate for President? This dark sad novel follows Dr. Paul Allen as he wrestles with the accusations being hurled at his son. Is he guilty? And, if so, why would he have done it? Noah Hawley gave me a lot to think about in this compelling story. But I wouldn't say it was a book I couldn't put down. Sometimes a book can be so harsh and sad that the reader doesn't want to keep turning the pages. And as he reveals more and more of the truth, Hawley re-visits the current assassinations and attempted assassinations in the US. It was very hard for me to relive those violent parts of our past.
    • 5/5
      What does a father think and feel when his eldest son shoots and kills a hotly tipped Presidential candidate? The son who he believes to be a regular young man. OK, so he is divorced from his son's mother and has remarried. He has a new family now and two little boys. He still saw his son as he was growing up..... every holiday when he was put on a plane to come visit. That happens to lots of kids right? Surely he has always been a good father?Paul Allen is a rheumatologist and has worked hard for the life he now has. All he knows is that his twenty year old son is on a road trip. One night he and his new family are at home when the news of the assasination turns their world upside down. Paul refuses to believe that Danny could ever have done such a thing. He searches for the truth to the point of obsession...even putting his marriage at risk.This novel is beautifully crafted and tells the unfolding tale of one young man's downfall and a father's search for understanding. Told from both Paul and Danny's points of view, it is an emotional roller coaster. The damage that had been done to Daniel is so well portrayed. That damage is slow and insidious and no worse than many children experience, but it leaves Daniel feeling like a "ghost child" as he puts it. His sadness and longing are palpable.The conclusion of the story and Paul's acceptance are deeply moving and brought me to tears.Noah Hawley is a new writer to me, but this is his fourth novel. He is also the script writer of the TV serial "Bones" based on Kathy Reichs's books. The man has a great talent.This book was made available to me, prior to publication, for an honest review.
    • 5/5
      Explaining the unexplainableDr. Paul Allen is a good man. As Noah Hawley’s novel opens, he is enjoying the family tradition of shouting out Jeopardy questions with his wife and twin sons. The game is interrupted by breaking news. The Democratic candidate—the presumed next President of the United States—has just been shot at a public rally. The coverage is chaotic, with reports and footage coming in from a variety of sources. Finally, some images of the shooter come up on the screen. It’s Daniel, Paul’s 20-year-old son from his first marriage. So begins a nightmare.I think this premise alone is enough to intrigue most readers. We’ve experienced these atrocities, seen the breaking news coverage, hoped for the best. Who hasn’t spared just a moment to think of the people who love the perpetrators of these crimes? Just because your child turns out to be a monster, doesn’t mean you stop loving them.Within moments, Secret Service agents have shown up at Dr. Allen’s door. He is taken in for questioning. They need to know everything about Daniel. He is shot, in custody, and branded as a terrorist. Paul is in shock and in denial. Yes, he’s seen the footage of his son with gun in hand, but he knows that Danny didn’t do it. As events unfold, Danny refuses to speak or defend himself, so it falls to his father. But Dr. Allen is a diagnostician, and even as he consistently proclaims his son’s innocence, he mentally searches for the trauma that broke him.This novel is about the people on the periphery of a terrible act. It’s about the toll a child’s action takes not only on the parent, but on the entire family. The story is realistic, honest, and utterly compelling. Though flawed, Paul is a hugely sympathetic protagonist, even as he’s being reviled by the world. And while it is clear as day that this loving father is grasping at straws to save his child, at a certain point you have to wonder if these anomalies he finds don’t add up to something more ominous. And at that point, a wonderful family drama becomes significantly more suspenseful. These questions will have you turning pages until you finally get the entire story. Mr. Hawley does a superlative tying up all lose ends, whether plot-related or emotional. This is a very contemporary story set in a realistic world most of us know all too well. The shootings of figures like Gabby Gifford, Ronald Reagan, and Robert Kennedy aren’t merely acknowledged, they’re dissected. Noah Hawley has tried to explain that which is essentially unexplainable. It’s extraordinary how well he succeeds. This novel works brilliantly on all levels. The writing is very strong without being unnecessarily showy. Each character, no matter how minor, is imbued with details that bring them to life. The human drama at the heart of this tale is both heart-breaking and healing. This is, in short, a flat-out fantastic novel. Read it!
    • 5/5
      Dr. Paul Allen’s idyllic life with his wife and young children is shattered when his son from a previous marriage is accused of assassinating a presidential candidate at a rally in downtown Los Angeles.The evidence against his son, Daniel, is strong. There are witnesses, there is video and his son doesn’t deny the charges. But as a father he cannot believe his son would do such a thing. There must be some other explanation. Perhaps his son is involved in a conspiracy or is taking the blame for someone else. Whatever it is, he is going to discover the truth. But at what cost?We alternate between the point of view of the father and the son. As we hear from each of them it soon becomes apparent that Paul didn’t know his son at all. He had no idea how a child felt when his parents were divorced and lived on opposite sides of the country. How it felt to be shipped back and forth between two homes and feeling like no one was there for you.This is an emotional read. After the shooting, Paul is ostracized by society. Even his friends act as if what happened was a result of something he did wrong. We experience Paul’s growing feelings of guilt, his need to prove his son is innocent in spite of Daniel’s unwillingness to cooperate and finally his need to be a good father to his son. At the same time he struggles to not let his obsessive behavior ruin his relationship with his wife and children.Interspersed between Paul and Daniel’s stories are case studies on other famous killers such as John Wilkes Booth, Sirhan Sirhan, Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme, Sarah Jane Moore, and Charles Whitman to name a few. Paul spent many hours researching other assassins in an effort to understand what happened with his son. I’m not sure this added much to our understanding of Daniel, but I did find the cases fascinating and interesting reading.This was an engaging story of a father’s determination to understand what went wrong. It is an easy read and within the first few chapters I was completely absorbed. It is a book you won’t want to put down as the suspense builds. Did Daniel act alone, and if he did, why? The ending is both touching and at the same time, satisfactory.