The Shadows We Hide
Ratings2
Average rating4.5
Journalist Joe Talbert investigates the murder of the father he never knew, and must reckon with his own family's past, in this "brilliant sequel" to the national bestseller The Life We Bury (Publishers Weekly). MINNESOTA BOOK AWARD FINALISTBARRY AWARD FINALIST Joe Talbert, Jr. has never once met his namesake. Now out of college, a cub reporter for the Associated Press in Minneapolis, he stumbles across a story describing the murder of a man named Joseph Talbert in a small town in southern Minnesota. Full of curiosity about whether this man might be his father, Joe is shocked to find that none of the town's residents have much to say about the dead man-other than that his death was long overdue. Joe discovers that the dead man was a loathsome lowlife who cheated his neighbors, threatened his daughter, and squandered his wife's inheritance after she, too, passed away--an inheritance that may now be Joe's. Mired in uncertainty and plagued by his own devastated relationship with his mother, who is seeking to get back into her son's life, Joe must put together the missing pieces of his family history -- before his quest for discovery threatens to put him in a grave of his own.
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Round up to 4.5. I think I may have even enjoyed this story more than book number one, The Life We Bury. Man, Allen Eskens can write a damn novel.
This is the sequel to The Life We Bury, and I enjoyed it more than the first book, which was also good. It has great characters and a compelling storyline. If you like character-driven mysteries, give these titles a try.
Joe Talbert from [b:The Life We Bury 20758175 The Life We Bury (Joe Talbert, #1; Max Rupert, #1) Allen Eskens https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1437077793l/20758175.SY75.jpg 40090621] is all grown up. He's a bonafide reporter for the Associated Press, his live-in girlfriend is about to sit for the Bar exam, and they're defacto parents to Joe's brother Jeremy who has special needs due to his autism. In the midst of regular life drama Joe's hit with the news that maybe his his father, who he thought had been dead for years, was in fact living a few towns over. The past tense is operative because he's just been found dead. Likely murdered. And Joe is on the case.I've enjoyed this series, primarily because I've consumed them as audios and they've been great. This one, like the first Joe Talbert book, is narrated by [a:Zach Villa 7463493 Zach Villa https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and he did a fantastic job. The story itself is good, well paced, and through Joe we get to experience the inner turmoil and growth of an individual, who though technically an adult, is still growing into his own skin. I think if we're healthy individuals we never cease taking on new experiences and reevaluating given new information while retaining a core truth. I'm once again reminded that I'm a nice or generous person vis a vis Joe's relationship with his mother. As always my favorite character was Jeremy. ❤️❤️
