Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of The Good Son by Michael Gruber

The Good Son by Michael Gruber

The Good Son

A Novel

by Michael Gruber

  • Critics' Consensus (2):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • May 2010, 400 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Somewhere in Pakistan, Sonia Laghari and eight fellow members of a symposium on peace are being held captive by armed terrorists. Sonia, a deeply religious woman as well as a Jungian psychologist, has become the de facto leader of the kidnapped group. While her son Theo, an ex-Delta soldier, uses his military connections to find and free the victims, Sonia tries to keep them all alive by working her way into the kidnappers' psyches and interpreting their dreams. With her knowledge of their language, her familiarity with their religion, and her Jungian training, Sonia confounds her captors with her insights and beliefs. Meanwhile, when the kidnappers decide to kill their captives, one by one, in retaliation for perceived crimes against their country, Theo races against the clock to try and save their lives.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. [A] provocative thriller that readers won't soon forget." - Publishers Weekly

"Starred Review. The pace here isn’t as rapid as usual, and much of the story is told in flashback or as discourse. But there are twists and tension aplenty - ideas, too." - Booklist

"Gruber… weaves threads together masterfully while successfully exploring themes of family, duty, loyalty, cultural identity and more, without ever slowing the momentum. Smart, tense and vastly entertaining." - Kirkus Reviews

"Starred Review. There are many surprises in this excellent thriller, including its ability to inform." - Library Journal

This information about The Good Son was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Marie

The Good Son is a Good Read
This is the best book I've read in a long time. As a mother of a son who is in the army now, I've been searching for a book to help me understand that psyche of those who go to war and want to be in the military. This book served that purpose for me and more. I could not put it down.

The author is masterful with each character's development. There are 2 - 3 story lines. This story also gave me insight into Pakistani and Afghan culture that most westerners are not privy to.

Sonia Bailey Laghiri is a kick ass heroine as are her son(s). I'll look for another book by Gruber soon.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Michael Gruber Author Biography

Michael Gruber was born and raised in New York City, and educated in its public schools. He went to Columbia, earning a BA in English literature. After college he did editorial work at various small magazines in New York, and then went back to school at City College and got the equivalent of a second BA, in biology. After that he went to the University of Miami and got a masters in marine biology. In 1968-69 he was in the U. S. Army as a medic.

In 1973, he received his Ph.D. in marine sciences, for a study of octopus behavior. Then he was a chef at several Miami restaurants, a hippie traveling around in a bus and a roadie for various rock groups. After this he worked for the county manager of Metropolitan Dade County, as an analyst, then as director of planning for ...

... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Michael Gruber's Website

Other books by Michael Gruber at BookBrowse
  • Valley of Bones jacket
  • Tropic of Night jacket
  • The Witch's Boy jacket

8 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more thrillers...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.