The Son is nothing if not heart-wrenching. It will eat you up, consume all your feelings, and make you yearn for the feel of Sonny’s hand caressing your own forehead.
Normally, I like fantasy, or science fiction. Historical fiction is welcome as well, and if a biography reads well, who am I to turn it down? However, if there is one genre that I avoid (besides romance), it would have to be mystery. Maybe I think that I see too much of it on television to appreciate the book enough, or maybe I am afraid it will be one of those creepy stories, the ones that make you close your closet before going to sleep and look behind your shoulder in the morning. But after reading stellar reviews for The Son on Goodreads, I thought, ‘why not?’
I didn’t regret it.
Jo Nesbo spun a story so amazing, so exciting, so real, it kept me on the edge of my proverbial- and sometimes literal- seat the entire time. While not giving the whole plot away, here is the basic summary:
Sonny Lofthus has been in a Norwegian prison for twelve years, for various crimes he did not commit. A heroin addict, he has been viewed by his fellow in-mates as a man they could confess their sins to. And they do; afterwards, he lays his cold hand on their forehead, and they are forgiven. Not once does he condemn them- he rarely speaks most of the time. That is, until he found out about his father.
Ab Lofthus, Sonny’s father, committed suicide shortly before Sonny began experimenting with heroin. In his suicide note, he confessed to being a corrupt cop. Now, Sonny is not sure if he were telling the truth.
Simon Kefas is a policeman. Close to retiring, he doesn’t have many friends in the force, and when he is assigned as a mentor to a young woman who wants nothing more than to get out of Homicide and leave the police for greater things, he can’t say that he is pleased. All the while, he has to deal with his younger-by-many-years wife who is quickly turning blind.
Martha works at the Ila Center, a hostel for drug addicts. Despite her soon-to-be-in-laws’ opinions, she refuses to leave her emotionally draining job.
The Twin is a mysterious name for a mysterious man. What does he have to do in any of this?
Taking place on Oslo’s finest streets and its grungiest hotels, this is a story of love, cruelty, betrayal, and, ultimately, forgiveness. It will rip your heart out of your chest and never give it back. Not sugar coated in the slightest, I blame my English teacher and her class for making me be distracted by all the wonderful and sad metaphors in this gem of a book. Read it, and like me, you will not regret it.