Just Jennifer

Finding Jake by Bryan Reardon (William Morrow, February 2015)

Stay at home dad Simon Connolly thinks he has done a pretty good job raising his son, 17-year-old Jake and younger daughter Laney.  At times, he has felt awkward around the stay at home moms in the neighborhood, but nothing prepares him for the anger and accusations that will be hurled at him after his son becomes a suspect in a high school shooting.  As Simon waits with other parents to be reunited with his children, beyond his worst fears are recognized when he is the sole remaining parent, even after the parents of children who have been killed are notified and led away.  Jake is missing, but even more confusing, heartbreaking and unbelievable, Jake is considered to be a suspect, along with his childhood friend Doug Martin-Klein who died at the scene of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  Simon and his wife Rachel, an attorney supporting the family, begin to doubt each other as Simon searches for Jake, ultimately doubting himself and the parenting job he did with the quiet son he thought he knew so well.  In flashbacks, Simon looks for signs that he could have seen this coming, but in the end, knows in his heart that Jake could never have participated in this carnage against his classmates.  What Simon finds is heartbreaking but affirms that he did know his son as well as he thought.  Well-paced, first time novelist Reardon keeps suspense high as a father searches for the son he thinks he knows and a way to live with the consequences of an unthinkable tragedy.