Memories (e-book) (used book) | Michael J Canzoniero | bookbook.eu

Description

Is nature or nurture to blame for the development of the murderer in Memories: Forgotten But Not Gone? In this ingenious combination of psychological theory and mystical thriller, Dr. Canzoniero examines the age-old philosophical debate about the impact of genetics and the environment in determining human behavior. The Kirkus Review: "A system meant to help two young, orphaned brothers fails them in this paranormal thriller by the author of In StrictestConfidence (2017). In 1968, fraternal twins Wayne and Mateo McBride become orphans at age 7 when their drug addict father, just out of prison, shoots and kills their addict mother. The authorities send the boys to the Bronx Children's Shelter, their first stop in New York's social services bureaucracy. Wayne is an angry tough guy while Mateo is a sensitive "wimp" (though he has a protector in his alter, Mark, an alternate self who comes out whenever Mateo feels threatened). Over the next few weeks, they meet the people who will affect their fates. These include Jimmy Lee, a fledgling child welfare worker; Dr. Antonio Perez, an overworked child psychiatrist; and Bill Hael, at first a guard at the shelter and later a homicide detective. Perez makes the fateful decision to separate the twins. Wayne gets placed with a foster mother who is secretly a drug addict, and he later becomes a drug lord after spending time in a boys' detention center. A loving couple takes in Mateo, and he flourishes, becoming a tennis star, a pharmaceutical executive, and a politician. But detective Hael is haunted by dreams he can't explain, and just when readers think they know where the book is going, it takes a sharp turn. A psychologist and Bronx native, Canzoniero has counseled abused children, teenage drug addicts, and adult alcoholics, and his familiarity with the underfunded world of social services-and its heartbreaking mistakes-is apparent. Wayne and Mateo needed everything to go right if they were to become productive members of society, and things go wrong for them from the start as Canzoniero takes what could have been just a screed about bureaucratic bungling and gives it a twist, resulting in a lively paranormal thriller. Like all good thrillers, this one keeps readers guessing. A bracing combination of bureaucracy bashing and mystical mystery." Michael J. Canzoniero, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist with over thirty-five years' experience counseling children and adults in his dual roles of school and clinical psychologist. He earned his doctorate from St. John's University in Queens, New York. He hopes his story-sprung from actual cases- will help explain why some boys are driven to kill.