Counterfeit Son is a 2000 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Elaine Marie Alphin and was written for young adults

Young adult literature

Young-adult fiction or young adult literature , also juvenile fiction, is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to 21. The Young Adult Library Services of the American Library Association defines a young adult as "someone between the...

. It received a 2001 Edgar Award

Edgar Award

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...

 from the Mystery Writers of America

Mystery Writers of America

Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....

 for Best Young Adult Mystery. It is a psychological

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 thriller.

Plot

Cameron Miller is 14. He has been physically

Child abuse

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...

 and sexually abused

Child sexual abuse

Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...

 by his father all his life. His 'Pop', Hank, was a serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

 who preys on young boys, murdering more than 20 over the years. Hank kept newspaper cuttings of each of the boys in a filing cabinet in the cellar where he locked Cameron while he torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

d and killed the boys. Cameron studied the cuttings and dreams of being one particular boy whose parents have sailboats on a lake. When 'Pop' dies in a gunfight with police, Cameron takes on the identity of this boy, Neil Lacey, a victim who was abducted and murdered six years earlier.

The Lacey parents accept 'Neil' into their home with few questions, but he lives in fear that he will make a serious mistake through not knowing Neil's likes and dislikes and that dental records and suspicious Detective Simmons will expose him. His eight-year-old brother Stevie is put out by his return and his younger sister Diana is convinced he's not Neil, but much prefers him to her memories of her real brother. Alphin describes the years of sexual and physical abuse that Cameron endured at the hands of his father, but never in graphic detail. Cameron is always expecting punishment from his new 'parents', yet finds kindness and love instead.

When Cougar, "Pop"'s former accomplice newly freed from prison, finds Cameron and threatens him with exposure, Cameron tries to tell his 'father' the truth. In the novel's climax

Climax (narrative)

The Climax is the point in the story where the main character's point of view changes, or the most exciting/action filled part of the story. It also known has the main turning point in the story...

, Stevie is kidnapped

Kidnapping

In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...

and Cameron risks everything to save him.

During the rescue Cameron's knowledge of the boat indicates that he really could be Neil, and eventually it is shown that Hank had killed his own son Cameron and Neil took his place as the homosexual son.