The Only Child
A Novel
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3.5 • 13 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Bestselling author Andrew Pyper returns with a thrilling new novel about one woman’s search for a mad killer, and the unsettling relationship that binds them.
What if you learned your father wasn’t who you thought he was? What if you learned you carried secrets deep within your blood?
Dr. Lily Dominick has seen her fair share of bizarre cases as a forensic psychiatrist working with some of New York’s most dangerous psychotic criminals. But nothing can prepare Lily for her newest patient.
Client 46874-A is nameless, and insists that he is not human. He tells Lily that he was not born, but created over two hundred years ago, and that he wants Lily to know what he is. As she listens to this man describe the twisted crime he’s committed, she can’t shake the feeling that he’s come for her—especially once he reveals that he knew her mother.
Lily Dominick was only six years old when her mother was violently murdered while Lily sat unscathed in the next room of their cabin. Investigators assumed it was a bear attack, but she has never been sure about what really happened that day. Now, this madman—this monster—may have the answers she’s been searching for.
When he suddenly escapes from the hospital and kills Lily’s boss, she does the unthinkable. She sets out on a hunt for the killer, not to return him to the authorities, but to unlock the mysteries he holds to her past.
The Only Child is a riveting thriller that asks dangerous questions about family ties that are bred and born in the blood.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Edgar-winner Pyper (The Damned) misfires in this supernatural thriller, which becomes less compelling and less scary the more explicit the threat to the lead gets. Doctor Lily Dominick, who works at New York's Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, was traumatized at age six when her mother was torn to pieces by a creature, probably a bear, that broke into their home in Alaska. Lily knows that her memories are flawed, since she's unable to explain why her mother's corpse was not consumed or why the animal left no tracks. That mystery is reawakened with a vengeance when Lily is assigned a new patient who says he has no name and who has been charged with assault after ripping off a man's ears with his bare hands. The patient unsettles Lily by asserting that he committed the crime so that he could meet her and that he knows the truth about her mother. As his explanation for his provocative statements unfolds, readers will strain to suspend disbelief. The characters are less well formed than in Pyper's better works.
