Reviewed by Lynette Fowlston for Readers' Favorite

The Son Who Paid Attention is the story of a close-knit family. Detective Stan Kostka followed in his father’s footsteps by joining the police force; Stan’s son Gene followed both his father and grandfather. Gene found some disturbing facts concerning his mother’s death by an unknown shooter 17 years earlier.

In the first section of the story Murder, Grief, Investigation, Gene thinks back after the death of his mother and remembers the things they did together as a family: picnics, trips to Chicago to visit grandparents, and fishing trips with his father and grandfather. As they got a little older, he could remember spats between his parents; however, they never lasted long and everything seem to be going fine. The weekend his mother Vi was murdered, his sisters stayed with their grandparents while he and his dad went on a Boy Scout trip; Vi had the weekend to herself. There were no clues, no suspects and eventually the murder was marked unsolved.

Part two of the story, Suspicion and Proof, occurs 17 years later. Gene was married with a family of his own. He had made the rank of Detective and joined the Major Crimes Task Force along with his father. Suddenly there was a focus on his mother’s disturbing past and eventually the clues that will lead to his mother’s murderer.

This is a very engrossing suspense thriller that I found very hard to put down. The book is a very well written. I could visualize the events as they unfolded. The characters are very easy to connect with and identify with their situations. This novel fulfilled my expectations for a suspense thriller, and I highly recommend it.