COUNTERFEIT SON by Elaine Marie Alphin

Counterfeit Son
Elaine Marie Alphin
Harcourt Brace
Young Adult
ISBN: 0152026452

What would it be like to be the son of a serial killer? Fourteen-year-old Cameron Miller knows. He helps his father bury the boys who won't listen when Cameron tells them to do what Pop wants. He attends school without saying anything. He keeps Hank Miller's secret for years. Pop teaches him well; he teaches him to keep silent, telling him that he will kill him if he ever tells anyone anything. "They'll know. They'll know how bad you are," Pop tells him over and over again.

Pop keeps records of all the boys he kills. Locking himself in the cellar, hidden away until Pop is done with his latest boy, Cameron spends his time going through the file cabinet, planning his escape. Finally, he chooses the boy he would most like to be. He chooses Neil Lacey, mainly because of the sailboats, and he waits for his chance. It comes on a day when, after Cameron leaves for school, his father is killed in a shoot-out with the police. Cameron walks into a police station, and Neil Lacey returns from the dead.

Detective Simmons isn't easy to convince. "'Why did he keep you alive?' he demands. 'He killed over twenty boys -- why were you special?' 'Because I did what he said,' Cameron whispers. He wants to tell the police that he'd bought the right to stay alive, bought it with nights of white-hot pain and days of aspirin-choked silence. He paid the price because he dreamed that someday Pop would finally tell him he was good, and the nightmare would stop."

Money, sailing, mother, father, brother, and sister --- Cameron has it all. He desperately wants to belong to this family. Not for the money, not even for the sailing, but because for the first time in his life he is happy and secure. No one will add to the scars already etched on his back by the beatings with a metal belt buckle; no one will tell him he is bad; no one will threaten to kill him. He is part of a family who loves him. However --- convincing Diane and Stevie that he is their long-lost brother is harder than he thought it would be.

Just as he is beginning to think that maybe he can pull this off, Cougar, Pop's friend and accomplice, shows up. Cougar needs money and figures Cameron can get it for him. He threatens to take Stevie if Cameron doesn't help him. Will Cameron be able to stand up to Cougar and protect Stevie at the same time?

Elaine Marie Alphin has written a chilling novel about a man who preys on young boys. Will his son's search for a new life destroy those around him? The final chapter of COUNTERFEIT SON will surprise even the most astute reader.

--- Reviewed by Audrey Marie Danielson