Keep Quiet by Lisa Scottoline

Synopsis:

This is a fiction book about Jake Buckman, a financial planner, who has a strained relationship with his sixteen year old son, Ryan. Jake’s wife Pam, suggests he pick up Ryan from the movie theater to give him time to bond with Ryan. On the way home, Ryan asks Jake to drive on a deserted road. Ryan accidentally hits a runner.

Jake attempts to perform CPR, and Ryan looks for his phone to call 911, but the woman is already dead. Jake and Ryan leave the scene of the accident, and Jake decides to take the blame for the accident in order to protect Ryan and encourages Ryan to lie to the police knowing that he could potentially go to jail. Also, Jake and Ryan keep the incident a secret from Pam, in order to protect her from the truth. However, Jake and Ryan both struggle with guilt, and eventually they tell Pam the truth.

Pam tells Jake they will keep this secret as a family but that she is divorcing Jake because she cannot move past the truth that he hid this from her. However, eventually, Jake finds out that Kathleen, the woman killed, was already dead before he hit her with her car and that Jake is not responsible, and Pam and Jake stay together.

Review:

I enjoyed this book and it is very thought provoking.

“He felt heartsick thinking about it now, too late. If he’d been considering the worst-case scenario on Pike Road, he never would have let Ryan drive and that woman would still be alive.”

“He would carry his remorse with him forever; he felt it to the very marrow, as if guilt were seeping into his very cells.”

“Jake wished he and Ryan could live inside that reality, in the very interstices of time, tucked under the comforter of not-knowing, sleeping as soundly as they used to, the before the same as the after.”

“That’s what parents are for, to worry about their kids.”