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Favorite Sons

By: Robin Yocum
Narrated by: Jeremy Arthur
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Editorial reviews

Political ambition, moral decisions, childhood secrets, and wrongful imprisonment form the web of this crime novel from Robin Yocum. Performed in a hushed, secretive tone by Jeremy Arthur, the listener follows Hutch van Buren from age 15 to 48. When Hutch is 15, he and his friends witness a crime and make a moral decision that will come back to haunt them: They let the wrong man take the fall. One-Eyed Jack, a loner and thug in a fictional factory town on the Ohio River, is imprisoned. Many years later, when Hutch is a political candidate, the aged One-Eyed Jack sees a perfect blackmail opportunity. Stark writing fused with colorful characters, like the outcast Ricky Blood, make this a crime thriller in the classic tradition.

Publisher's Summary

A riveting novel in which old friends must excavate the formative event of their childhood - a murder - and determine how to pit truth against justice.

Hutch Van Buren is 15 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 17-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.

©2011 Robin Yocum (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews

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

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