Review: The Wrong Boy

The Wrong Boy by Cathy Ace
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The best part of a psychological thriller for me is watching the unfolding revelations of the characters, especially when the protagonist or another character is an unreliable narrator, and either unaware of her/his shortcomings and failings and motives, or simply not confiding in the reader (or both are true). So I delighted in the twisty ways that THE WRONG BOY played out; the reader goes along thinking one version is true, then smack! another version (as interpreted by unreliable narrator), then yet another, another, and so forth. Quite satisfying to read through, holding on to one perception only to find it upended, and this continued throughout the novel. It is said that eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable; and so it is in THE WRONG BOY, the characters who are eyewitnesses of their own lives (presumably) still fail to perceive truth, and they certainly fail to pass that truth on to others, even their own family members; so that generation upon generation upon generation holds concealed secrets and psychological dysfunction.

THE WRONG BOY is an excellent psychological suspense thriller, set in a stunning location with eons of history, ingrown characters, and a background on which play out the "normal" human emotions and motives, and quite a few not so "normal."

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