Upstanding Young Man

A star wrestler with a bright future goes missing weeks before his high school graduation, and his mother falls under suspicion. In this pulse-pounding thriller, secrets threaten to destroy everything—and someone will pay the ultimate price.

Meg Hart has taken great pains to create her perfect All-American family. With four successful children and a minor boxing celebrity for a husband, it looks effortless. But that’s because she’s been smart about it.

However, on a brisk spring morning weeks before his graduation, her son McClane goes missing. A teenage wrestling star brimming with potential, his disappearance sends shockwaves through their Chicago suburb and shatters Meg’s carefully curated image of domestic bliss. And as the investigation deepens, the police zero in on her as their perfect suspect. Tragedy has struck this family before, and all signs suggest that she is the source. Add in her elusive husband’s strange behavior and inconsistencies in her story, it becomes clear that she has plenty to hide.

Before he disappears, it turns out McClane has secrets of his own: a pregnant girlfriend, a shocking truth about his wrestling career, and a chilling discovery—the person he trusts most has betrayed him in the worst way.  

Alternating between Meg’s perspective in the initial days of the investigation, and McClane’s in the hours leading up to his disappearance, Upstanding Young Man confronts the haunting question of whether we can truly know anyone—even those closest to us—and how far we’d go to protect them anyway.