Favorite Sons: A Novel - Hardcover

Yocum, Robin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1611450047 ISBN 13: 9781611450040

Publisher: Arcade Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

Narrator of Favorite Sons Hutch Van Buren is fifteen years old, playing sports and searching for arrowheads in a small industrial town in Ohio with his three closest friends when an altercation between the comrades and Petey Sanchez, a troubled seventeen- year-old, leads to Petey’s accidental death. Together, Hutch and his friends become ensnared in a web of secrets and moral dilemmas. A local ne’er-do-well goes to jail for the crime while the boys keep their pact of silence. Each boy shoulders the burden of truth in his own way as each attempts to leave the past behind.

Thirty-three years later, in 2004, Van Buren is the prosecuting attorney in Summit County, Ohio, and a candidate for state attorney general when he learns that he and his boyhood friends weren’t the only ones keeping a secret about Petey’s death. A convicted sex offender in need of a favor attempts to blackmail Van Buren in return for his silence. Van Buren must decide between his political career and the duty of the office he has sworn to uphold. With the clock ticking, Van Buren has a week to seek out his boyhood friends and search his soul while he sorts out three decades of deceit he helped create.

Favorite Sons is a wonderful, suspenseful novel with nuanced, memorable characters and unpredictable plot twists.

About this title

About the Author:

Robin Yocum is the president of Yocum Communications, a public relations and marketing firm in Westerville, Ohio. Well known for his work as a crime and investigative reporter with the Columbus Dispatch from 1980 to 1991, he was the recipient of thirty local, state, and national journalism awards in categories ranging from investigative reporting to feature writing. His first novel, Favorite Sons, was named USA Book News’ Book of the Year for Mystery/Suspense. It was selected for the Choose to Read Ohio program for 2013–14, and was a featured book of the 2012 Ohioana Book Festival.

Review:

“It’s rare to find a book that doesn’t fail on some level, but this is one I read without a hint of disappointment.” (Bookpleasures.com)

“Favorite Sons keeps the reader turning pages with its twisted plot and characters facing high stakes.” (Columbus Dispatch)

“This is a seething mass of moral turpitude, opportunistic extortion and endemic corruption. What a tasty debut novel it is.” (Dayton Daily News)

“Favorite Sons is a riveting novel in which friendships are pitted against truth with dead-on dialog and unforgettable characters. Yocum’s debut fiction novel is a fresh, fast-paced story that explores a sharply etched world of intrigue, friendship, politics, and, ultimately, the weight of truth.” (Mystery Crime Blog)

About this edition

• Publisher: Arcade Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1611450047
• ISBN 13: 9781611450040
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 286