Most Likely to Succeed by Alan Gelb

Most Likely to Succeed by Alan Gelb

When the sheriff first described the bloody scene, he was reduced to tears. Four people had been brutally murdered in an isolated country cabin. Robert Gates, a popular local businessman, his long-time live-in girlfriend, Cheryl, his nineteen-year-old son, Bobby Jr., and a three-year-old orphaned nephew - all shot at point-blank range.

By sunrise the next morning, a stunned community learned that Wyley Gates, the dead man's seventeen-year-old son - salutatorian of Chatham High School, vice-president of his class, the grandson of local aristocracy who was sure to be voted "most likely to succeed" - had allegedly confessed to the four grisly murders.

From behind closed doors at the Gates family home emerges a dark portrait of a seething father-son rivalry that grew into an all-out hate war. And behind the emotionless face Wyley presented to the world was a human timebomb waiting to explode - deeply disturbed adolescent incapable of compassion, and consumed by a hidden rage that became a chilling obsession to kill.