The Perfect Son by Freida McFadden

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The Perfect Son by Freida McFadden

Erika Cass is lucky. She has a wonderful husband named Jason who is a good provider and makes terrible puns, a 14-year-old daughter named Hannah who tests her patience, and a 16-year-old son named Liam who is… well, he’s perfect. She hates to admit it, but Liam is her favorite. However, she worries about Liam more than she does about either Hannah or her hard-working husband.

Although Liam is a top student at his high school, star of the debate team, and member of the track team, he’s had some problems. But they weren’t really bad problems. When he was a little kid, he liked to torture insects. Then when he was a bit older, he enjoyed watching his hamster starve to death. He was expelled from kindergarten, and the family had to move. Well, things like that happen.

After the incident in the second grade, Erika took Liam to a psychologist who explained the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath to Erika. So, she didn’t worry too much about the fact that Liam probably didn’t love her as a child should love its mother. But the sessions ended abruptly when the therapist became afraid of Liam. Yet everyone else loved him.

Liam was intelligent, polite, and practiced all of the social graces. Well, maybe one of his high school teachers didn’t like him very much, but — as already noted — those things happen. Besides, now all is well for Liam. He has a girlfriend, finally. For several years, Erika has been paying a private detective to discourage any girls in whom Liam seems to be interested.

But Ovilia Mercer is head over heels about Liam. She sits behind him in math class, and she’s probably flunking math because all she can think about is the handsome Liam. So, when he asks if she’d like to meet him after school for a milkshake, her heart beats triple time and her knees turn to jelly. The “date” goes well, but Liam’s sister Hannah lets it slip at home that her brother Liam’s got a girlfriend named Olivia.

Erika gets the yearbook and starts going through the photos. She finds Olivia Madison and sics her private investigator on her. She believes that she’s solved the potential problem, but she’s got the wrong Olivia. That little detail becomes known when Olivia Mercer goes missing.

Everyone at school is sure that Liam has kidnapped and killed her. Erika knows that, when he was younger, Liam talked about someday having a wife whom he could throw in a hole and watch while she starved to death. Pretty soon, the whole town believes that Liam has killed Olivia. And, so does Erika!

Freida McFadden’s “The Perfect Son” (2019, 327 pages in paperback format) holds together right up until the “twist” ending. I expected something unusual because it had to be “off the wall” in order to make this a true mystery. But I don’t think that the author built enough foundation to substantiate the climax and denouement.

✅ Genre: Thriller, Psychological thriller, Suspense, Mystery, Psychological Fiction.

✅ Premium Quality Books.

✅ High Printing quality.

✅ Eye Friendly.

✅ Eco Friendly paper.

✅ Matt cover (Paperback)