This should have been a short story. It's the first Bentley Little that made me cringe. Horror shouldn't make me cringe. ( )

He's a good gross out writer, and I liked a lot of his earlier stuff, but some of the things I bought eight or nine years ago didn't impress me much. I was quite impressed with how good this one was. It was less crude than some of his previous works and the plot had a really neat twist to it. In this story a normal editor from Irvine thinks his dad, who has been hospitalized with sudden onset dementia, is confessing a murder to him when he visits. He starts investigating and convinces himself his dad is a closet serial killer when his dad starts describing more murders to him. He ends up becoming the worst kind of monster in his pursuit to learn the truth about his dad. Fun, gruesome stuff. ( )

Steve Nye's quiet life takes an unexpected turn when he receives a phone call from his mother - his father tried to kill her. the doctor's say it's dementia and his father is committed to a psych ward. During a period of lucidancy he utters one phase that will spirl Stev's life out of control - "I killed her". Not one of Bently Littles better works in my opinion but well worth the read. ( )

I'm a fan of Bentley Little, but this was off the mark. I mean it was just awful, I couldn't even finish it.

Steve gets a call form his mom saying that his father tried to kill her and now is on a state hospital. Steve needs to find out the truth and get tot he bottom to what happened. That's pretty much the plot.

**SOME SPOILERS**I had a lot of problems with the book. First is that we're introduced to characters, then they vanish, gone. I've read 1/2 of it, and the chars never came back. For no reason Steve (the son) kills one man and beats the stuffing out of another man, and we're never given a reason. Then, there is a chapter called, "The Hands of God" that just brings the story to a screeching halt. The many characters just seem to be so odd and have no reason for doing what they did.

This was a complete mess. Like I said, Usually I like Little's books, but this was a complete miss. Normally, I'd say get this at the library, but don't even waste your time. ( )

Steve Nye's father is sent to a psychiatric ward after assaulting his mother. While Steve has never been close to either of his parents, he still feels the need to visit them and find out what's going on. The doctors think Steve's dad is losing his mind, especially when he starts saying strange things that make little sense. When Steve's dad dies, he begins to dig into his family's past and discovers that his old man has left a trail of bodies in every town they had lived in.

For its first 100 pages, HIS FATHER'S SON reads like a standard mainstream suspense story; but this is exactly where Little lets you know this is going to be anything but. We see Steve become twice the monster his father was, at times told from some wickedly head-trippy viewpoints, and much of the violence is genuinely disturbing (especially one scene in a backyard where Steve is trying to escape from the police). Chapter 22 is arguably the spookiest thing the author has written to date.

Although I liked how Little branched out from his standard style with his 2005 release, DISPATCH, this time he managed to keep his classic macabre voice, yet in a fresh way. HIS FATHER'S SON is one of the more original and bizarre serial killer novels I've ever read, and is a fine example of why Little has been my favorite horror author for quite some time.

Add two pluses here for the creepiest use of Clowns in years, and for a nod to one of my favorite bands, Missing Persons!

A must read. ( )