Boy on the Bus by Deborah Schupack

Hardcover book is in near fine condition with dust jacket in same condition. Pages are crisp and clean, like it hasn't been read. Book is 215 pages long. ISBN 0743242203. The Free Press. 2003 edition. Additional pictures of condition are always available.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: With this unexpectedly impressive debut novel of psychological mystery, Schupack boldly announces her presence at the table of writers who deserve to be heard. Meg Landry expected it to be a day like any other-her asthmatic 8 year old son would step off the bus, home from school. But on this day, the boy on the bus is not is not Meg's son - or at least doesn't appear to be. This new boy shares Charlie's copper hair, tea brown eyes, and slight frame. But there is something profoundly, if indefinably, different about him. He has a finer nose, his skin is shinier, and his face looks more mature, as if he has grown into being Charlie more than the real Charlie ever had. In the wake of Meg's quiet alarm, her far flung family returns home, and a jangly unease sets in. Neither Charlie's father nor his rebellious sister can help Meg settle the question of the boy. They look to her for certainty--after all, shouldn't a mother know her own child? In this daring novel, Deborah dissects a family stretched out along the seams of postmodern small town life. With the precision of a literary wordsmith, Schupack has crafted an extraordinary tale of a mother's love for her son and a mystery that may ultimately rip them apart. Tense and atomospheric, this debut is a rare combination of intellectual sophistication and page-turning suspense.