Finding Jake

December 8, 2014
Early in Reardon’s moving, if at times maudlin first novel, Simon Connolly receives word of a shooting at the suburban Delaware high school attended by his two children. But worse news awaits: the police suspect his missing 17-year-old son, Jake, of being one of the gunmen. As Simon and wife Rachel, a workaholic corporate attorney, try to push aside the strains in their marriage to confront the unimaginable as a family, he can’t help revisiting key moments in his son’s life. Simon obsesses over what role his social awkwardness and his decision to be a stay-at-home dad might have played in the tragedy. Could he really have been so grievously wrong about what kind of boy he was raising? Although some of Simon’s memories turn teary, Reardon (Ready, Set, Play!, a sports book with retired NFL player Mark Schlereth) deftly builds suspense by setting his dual story lines on a collision course toward a shattering—and surprising—conclusion. Agent: Stephanie Rostan, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency.

June 1, 2015

Simon is a stay-at-home dad whose life changes when he gets an emergency text from his children's high school: there has been a shooting, and all parents are requested to assemble at the church near the school. Simon watches tensely as the teens arrive and are reunited with their parents. His daughter shows up, but not his son, Jake. Soon word emerges that there were two shooters, one a boy named Doug. He has always been strange, but Jake, following Simon's advice, has treated Doug kindly. The police believe that Jake was Doug's accomplice. Over the next few days, he and his wife Rachel must cope with angry neighbors, predatory media, and suspicious police as they attempt to find out where Jake is and what really happened. The protagonist thinks back over his son's life, trying to see if his memories of Jake's relationships with his sister, friends, and parents carry any clues to the current tragedy. Alternating between these flashbacks and Simon's actions following the shooting, this is a look at one family's response to a harrowing experiences. VERDICT Pulse-pounding, gut-wrenching, and heartbreaking, this fast-paced thriller will appeal to teens who enjoyed Tim Johnston's Descent (Algonquin, 2015).-Sarah Flowers, formerly of Santa Clara County Public Library, CA.

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2014
A father hears about a shooting incident at his son's high school-and then finds his son is one of the suspected killers.Simon Connolly is the anguished father and narrator in this psychological thriller by Reardon. Through chapters that more or less alternate between the present (the three-week period following the shooting) and the past (his son's childhood), we get a dual perspective and wonder along with Simon whether Jake is indeed capable of such an atrocity. Simon's anguish is particularly acute because he was a stay-at-home dad, taking care of both Jake and his younger sister, Laney, while Rachel, their mom, supported the family as a lawyer. When the news about the shooting breaks, parents rush to a local church to be reunited with their children, but Jake doesn't turn up. Instead, it becomes clear from both the police and the media that Jake might have been involved along with his friend, a loner named Doug Martin-Klein, who was found at the school, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. As names of the shooting victims become known, Simon quickly becomes a pariah for agonized parents convinced Jake was responsible for killing their children. A rift opens between Simon and Rachel as well because he's not sure whether he can believe in Jake's innocence. He reviews incidents from Jake's past-encounters with a school guidance counselor, play dates with Doug-that might (or might not) be significant. A compelling read; disturbingly relevant in contemporary America.

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January 1, 2015
When you write a first-person narrative that takes place in the wake of a school shooting, comparisons to Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk about Kevin (2003) are unavoidable. From the opening pages, we know that Simon Connolly's son, Jake, was involved in a shooting at his Delaware high school. What his stay-at-home dad recounts are the memories of raising his kind, quiet son layered between the minutes, hours, and days following the shooting. Reardon, a freelance writer specializing in medical communications, beautifully captures the parental second-guessing that is magnified in times of crisis. In the early stages of the investigation, the speculations about Jake affect his father, sister, and mother all in different but perfectly believable ways. Reardon also does an excellent job maintaining suspense throughout the book. The reader is afraid to know what she thinks she knows. Ultimately, what is revealed about Jake is unavoidable and unpredictably heartbreaking.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)