Allen Eskens

"An ordinary writing assignment for a college English class brings Joe face-to-face with a dying Vietnam veteran, who is also a convicted murderer."--

The life we bury

Lila Nash, Joe Talbert's beloved girlfriend from the USA Today-bestseller The Life We Bury and The Shadows We Hide, takes the lead for the first time in this thrilling new mystery, as she races to outsmart a serial killer and to escape the dark hold of her own past. Lila Nash is on the verge of landing her dream job--working as a prosecutor under the Hennepin County Attorney--and has finally settled into a happy life with her boyfriend, Joe Talbert. But when a new case crosses her desk, things take a personal turn. Sadie Vauk has been pulled from the Mississippi River, barely alive. The police believe her assailant to be local photographer Gavin Spenser, but their evidence is slim. Gavin has been preparing for this moment. He knows that Sadie's escape might cause a lesser mind to panic, but he's no lesser mind. After years of working from the shadows, he will finally match wits with the best, and he knows that he will win. But Lila is driven by her own dark secret. Eight years before, she too survived an unspeakable attack. The more determined Lila becomes to put Gavin behind bars, however, the more elusive justice becomes. Battling a new boss and haunted by her own ghosts, the clock is ticking. In a race against an evil mastermind, it will take everything Lila's got to face what she has feared the most--and to put an end to a killer's ruthless plan.

The Stolen Hours

In the highly-anticipated sequel to the national bestseller The Life We Bury, Joe Talbert returns to investigate the murder of the father he never knew, and to reckon with his own family's past. 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 childhood dreams about who his father might have been, Joe is shocked to find that none of the town's residents have much to say about his father's murder-other than that it was long overdue. Joe discovers that his father was a loathsome man who cheated his neighbors, threatened his daughter, and squandered his wife's inheritance after she, too, passed away--an inheritance that may now be his. Mired in uncertainty and plagued by his own tenuous relationship with his mother, whose sobriety has led her to seek reconciliation with her distant son, 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.

The Shadows We Hide

FEATURING THREE CHARACTERS FROM THE BESTSELLING BOOK-CLUB FAVORITE THE LIFE WE BURY, THIS NOVEL EXPLORES A RIVETING MURDER CASE TOLD FROM TWO OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES. Detective Max Rupert and attorney Boady Sanden’s friendship is being pushed to the breaking point. Max is convinced that Jennavieve Pruitt was killed by her husband, Ben. Boady is equally convinced that Ben, his client, is innocent. As the case unfolds, the two are forced to confront their own personal demons. Max is still struggling with the death of his wife four years earlier, and the Pruitt case stirs up old memories. Boady hasn’t taken on a defense case since the death of an innocent client, a man Boady believes he could have saved but didn’t. Now he is back in court, with student Lila Nash at his side, and he’s determined to redeem himself for having failed in the past. Vividly told from two opposing perspectives, the truth about the stunning death of Jennavieve Pruitt remains a mystery until the very end. From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Heavens May Fall

In a small town where loyalty to family and to "your people" carries the weight of a sacred oath, defying those unspoken rules can be a deadly proposition. After fifteen years of growing up in the Ozark hills with his widowed mother, high-school freshman Boady Sanden is beyond ready to move on. He dreams of glass towers and cityscapes, driven by his desire to be anywhere other than Jessup, Missouri. The new kid at St. Ignatius High School, if he isn't being pushed around, he is being completely ignored. Even his beloved woods, his playground as a child and his sanctuary as he grew older, seem to be closing in on him, suffocating him. Then Thomas Elgin moves in across the road, and Boady's life begins to twist and turn. Coming to know the Elgins-a black family settling into a community where notions of "us" and "them" carry the weight of history-forces Boady to rethink his understanding of the world he's taken for granted. Secrets hidden in plain sight begin to unfold: the mother who wraps herself in the loss of her husband, the neighbor who carries the wounds of a mysterious past that he holds close , the quiet boss who is fighting his own hidden battle. But the biggest secret of all is the disappearance of Lida Poe, the African-American woman who keeps the books at the local plastics factory. Word has it that Ms. Poe left town, along with a hundred thousand dollars of company money. Although Boady has never met the missing woman, he discovers that the threads of her life are woven into the deepest fabric of his world. As the mystery of her fate plays out, Boady begins to see the stark lines of race and class that both bind and divide this small town, and he is forced to choose sides.

Nothing More Dangerous

"Who was James Putnam? The answer to that question may help Minnesota detective Alexander Rupert salvage the wreck of his career. A former Medal of Valor winner, Rupert is now under subpoena by a grand jury on suspicion of corruption. So when he s asked to look into the false identity of a car-accident victim named James Putnam, a man who in fact died fifteen years earlier, Rupert sees a potentially big case and an opportunity to regain his respectability. But the investigation puts him in the path of the Beast, the nom de guerre of Drago Basta, a cunning veteran of the Balkan wars and a sociopath assassin who has been searching for Putnam for years. Putnam had something that Basta still wants. If Rupert s life was in shambles before, it s now also in danger. Threatened by the Beast and suspecting his wife of cheating, Rupert falls for the seductions of the dead man s former girlfriend. As he feels his life spinning out of control, his steadfast brother and fellow police detective Max may be Rupert s last hope."

The Guise of Another

"Homicide Detective Max Rupert never fully accepted his wife's death, even when he believed that a reckless hit and run driver was the cause. But when he learns that in fact she was murdered, he devotes himself to hunting down her killers. Most of his life he had thought of himself as a decent man. But now he's so consumed with thoughts of retribution that he questions whether he will take that last step and enact the vengeance he longs for. On a frozen lake near the US-Canadian border, he wrestles with a decision that could change his life forever, as his hatred threatens to turn him into the kind of person he has spent a career bringing to justice"--

The Deep Dark Descending

A lawyer's race to reveal a wrongful conviction collides with the dark shadow of a murder in his own home in this propulsive and perfectly-plotted thriller from "one of our best crime writers at the top of his game" (William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author). When Boady Sanden first receives the case of Elijah Matthews, he’s certain there’s not much he can do. Elijah, who believes himself to be a prophet, has been locked up in a psychiatric hospital for the past four years, convicted of brutally murdering the pastor of a megachurch. But as a law professor working for the Innocence Project, Boady agrees to look into Elijah’s file. When he does, he is alarmed to find threads that lead back to the death of his colleague and friend, Ben Pruitt, a man shot to death four years earlier in Boady’s own home. Ben’s daughter, Emma, has lived with Boady and Boady’s wife Dee ever since that awful night. Now fourteen years old, Emma has been growing distant, and soon makes a fateful choice that takes her far from the safety of her godparents. Desperate to bring her home, and to free an innocent man, Boady must do all he can to investigate Elijah’s case while fighting to save the family he has deeply come to love. Written with energy, propulsion, and his characteristic pathos and insight, Eskens delivers another pitch-perfect legal thriller that reveals a twisted murder and explores faith, love, family, and redemption along the way.

A Novel

Saving Emma

Seorang gadis pemandu sorak dibunuh dengan kejam di sebuah gudang. Sang tetangga, Carl Iverson, seorang veteran Perang Vietnam, dijadikan tersangka dan divonis puluhan tahun penjara. Tiga puluh tahun kemudian, Joe Talbert, seorang mahasiswa, mendapat tugas untuk menuliskan biografi seseorang. Dia berencana mencari narasumber dari panti jompo, tapi siapa sangka dia malah bertemu Carl, sang pembunuh yang tengah sekarat karena kanker pankreas? Kesempatan untuk mewawancarai Carl adalah tantangan yang tidak akan Joe lewatkan. Namun, tidak ada penjahat yang mau mengaku. Carl pun begitu. Sejujur apa seorang pria yang hampir mati? Bisakah Joe percaya? Helai demi helai benang kebenaran terurai. Dalam perjalanan menguak peristiwa tragis dan menghadapi pertarungan hidup dan mati dengan iblis sesungguhnya dari masa lampau, Joe juga harus menghadapi masa sekarangnya yang kacau balau. Sebelum semuanya terlambat, mampukah Joe melewati semuanya dengan selamat? [Mizan, Noura Books, Horor, Thiller, Novel, Terjemahan, Indonesia, Allen Esken]

The Life We Bury

Stolen Hours

Three fathers collide far beyond the reach or safety of the law in this breathtaking thriller from the beloved author of The Stolen Hours and The Life We Bury: "one of our best crime writers at the top of his game" (William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author). Max Rupert has left his position as a Minneapolis homicide detective to live in solitude. Mourning the tragic death of his wife, he's also racked by guilt—he alone knows what happened to her killer. But then the former local sheriff, Lyle Voight, arrives with a desperate plea: Lyle’s daughter Sandy and his six-year-old grandson Pip have disappeared. Lyle’s certain Sandy's ex-husband Reed is behind it, but the new sheriff is refusing to investigate. When Max reluctantly looks into their disappearance, he too becomes convinced something has gone very wrong. But the closer Max and Lyle get to finding proof, the more slippery Reed becomes, until he makes a break for the beautiful but formidable Boundary Waters wilderness with vulnerable Pip in tow. Racing after the most dangerous kind of criminal—a desperate father—and with the ghosts of their own pasts never far behind, Max and Lyle go on the hunt within a treacherous landscape, determined to bring an evil man to justice, and to bring a terrified child home alive. “Allen Eskens . . . produces some of the best cat-and-mouse games I have read. This is a novel that you will not easily forget.” —BookReporter “The search for mother and child fuels the brisk plot, but Forsaken Country spins on Eskens’ in-depth character studies. . . . Eskens is at the top of his skills.” —Oline H. Cogdill, The South Florida Sun Sentinel “The suspense never flags . . . heart-pounding and heartfelt, Forsaken Country should be at the top of your to-be-read list.”— Heather Gudenkauf

Forsaken Country

After fifteen years of growing up in the Ozark hills with his widowed mother, high-school freshman Boady Sanden is beyond ready to move on. He dreams of glass towers and cityscapes, driven by his desire to be anywhere other than Jessup, Missouri. The new kid at St. Ignatius High School, if he isn't being pushed around, he is being completely ignored. Even his beloved woods, his playground as a child and his sanctuary as he grew older, seem to be closing in on him, suffocating him. Then Thomas Elgin moves in across the road, and Boady's life begins to twist and turn. Coming to know the Elgins-a black family settling into a community where notions of "us" and "them" carry the weight of history-forces Boady to rethink his understanding of the world he's taken for granted. Secrets hidden in plain sight begin to unfold: the mother who wraps herself in the loss of her husband, the neighbor who carries the wounds of a mysterious past that he holds close, the quiet boss who is fighting his own hidden battle. But the biggest secret of all is the disappearance of Lida Poe, the African-American woman who keeps the books at the local plastics factory. Word has it that Ms. Poe left town, along with a hundred thousand dollars of company money. Although Boady has never met the missing woman, he discovers that the threads of her life are woven into the deepest fabric of his world. As the mystery of her fate plays out, Boady begins to see the stark lines of race and class that both bind and divide this small town, and he is forced to choose sides.

'This powerful, unforgettable crime novel is a coming-of-age book to rival some of the best, such as William Kent Krueger's Ordinary Grace or Larry Watson's Montana 1948 . . . A must-read.' Library Journal (starred review) In a small town where loyalty is valued above all, defying unspoken rules can be deadly. A coming-of-age novel for fans of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. At fifteen, Boady Sanden dreams of being anywhere other than Jessup, Missouri. Then the Elgins move in across the road. Getting to know his new neighbours - a black family in a community where notions of "us" and "them" still carry weight - Boady is forced to rethink the world he took for granted. Secrets hidden in plain sight begin to unfold. There's the mother consumed by loss of her husband, the neighbour who carries the wounds of a mysterious past, the quiet boss fighting a hidden battle. But the biggest secret of all is the disappearance of Lida Poe, the African-American woman who keeps the books at the local factory. Although Boady has never met the missing woman, he discovers that the threads of her life are woven into the deepest fabric of his world. As the mystery of Lida's fate plays out, Boady begins to see the stark lines of race and class that both bind and divide this small town - and he will be forced to choose sides.

Investigating the wrongful conviction of Elijah Matthews for the Innocence Project, attorney Boady Sanden discovers a link between Elijah's case and the death of his best friend, Ben, and when Ben's 14-year-old daughter makes a fateful choice, he will do anything to bring her home and free an innocent man.

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.

A única coisa que Joe Talbert deseja é terminar o trabalho da faculdade: entrevistar um estranho e escrever uma breve biografia. Com os prazos se aproximando, o garoto decide ir a um asilo para encontrar o tão desejado objeto de trabalho. Lá ele conhece Carl Iverson e logo a vida de Joe vai ter mudado para sempre. Veterano da Guerra do Vietnã, desenganado com apenas alguns meses de vida, Carl foi internado na casa de repouso em liberdade condicional devido ao estágio avançado de câncer depois de trinta anos preso pelos crimes de estupro e assassinato. À medida que escreve sobre a vida de Carl, principalmente sobre o período que o homem passou na guerra, Joe começa a ter dificuldade de conciliar o heroísmo do soldado com os desprezíveis atos do criminoso. Acompanhado de Lila, sua vizinha cética, Joe se lança em uma busca pela verdade, mas lidar com a mãe perigosamente disfuncional, a culpa de deixar o irmão autista sozinho em casa e uma lembrança assustadora vão malograr seus esforços. Fio por fio, Joe começa a desfazer a intricada tapeçaria do crime de Carl, mas, quanto mais se aproxima das reais circunstâncias do crime, mais nós aparecem. Joe vai conseguir descobrir a verdade ou já é muito tarde para escapar?

A vida que enterramos

Minneapolis. Il detective Alexander Rupert sta vivendo il periodo più duro della sua vita: declassato dalla Narcotici all’unità Antifrode dopo essere stato ingiustamente accusato di aver sottratto beni e denaro durante alcuni arresti, si muove come un paria tra i corridoi del dipartimento, evitato dai colleghi e oberato da pratiche inutili o noiose. Davanti a sé ha ora la prospettiva di un doloroso doppio confronto: con il Gran Giurì – correndo il rischio di venire comunque condannato e sospeso dal servizio – e con sua moglie, della quale ha da poco scoperto una relazione clandestina. In preda allo sconforto, quando si trova davanti alle domande di uno squallido avvocato per un caso di un incidente stradale mortale dalla dinamica bizzarra, è rassegnato all’ennesima ordinaria amministrazione. Se non fosse che la vittima, James Putnam, risulta morta da quindici anni... Per Alexander quest’indagine potrebbe rappresentare l’inizio della riscossa. Una riscossa pericolosa, poiché il teatro degli eventi si allarga dalle Twin Cities a New York e all’Iowa, e il supposto furto di identità assume contorni sempre più foschi. L’ex militare jugoslavo Drago Basta sta infatti a sua volta seguendo a ritroso le tracce di Putnam per recuperare una scottante registrazione, e non ha intenzione di fermarsi di fronte a niente e nessuno. L’investigazione sembra muoversi su un sottilissimo strato di ghiaccio, in cui ogni stentato passo verso la verità rende più vicino il rischio di sprofondare nell’abisso, e le risposte da trovare appaiono nascoste ben al di sotto delle apparenze: qual è la vera identità di Putnam? qual è il motivo degli enormi bonifici che riceveva ogni anno? perché per tutto questo tempo ha vissuto in incognito? Per venire a capo dell’intricata vicenda, Alexander avrà bisogno dell’aiuto di suo fratello, Maximilian, e di Billie, una poliziotta newyorkese piena di personalità e spirito d’iniziativa. Storia dalla suspense tesa e tagliente, Al posto di un altro è un thriller che penetra nella psiche dei personaggi e, coi suoi continui colpi di scena, incolla il lettore alla pagina, coinvolgendolo in un appassionante vortice narrativo. «Una storia tesa, intelligente, che esplora i luoghi più oscuri della psiche umana». William Kent Krueger «Eskens cattura il lettore e non abbandona più la presa». Library Journal

Al posto di un altro

Carl Iverson reca in faccia tutti i segni della vecchiaia, ha la pelle ingiallita dall’ittero e un collo così fine da poter essere afferrato con una mano sola. Tuttavia, al di là dell’età e di una grave malattia, non ha altro in comune con gli ospiti della casa di riposo di Hillview Manor, a Minneapolis. Carl Iverson, infatti, è un mostro, accusato di aver stuprato, ucciso e dato alle fiamme la quattordicenne Crystal Marie Hagen il 29 ottobre 1980. Quando giunge al suo cospetto per intervistarlo, e redigere una breve biografia per il suo corso di inglese all’università, lo studente Joe Talbert scorge un uomo che non ha nulla del pazzo sadico e assassino. Iverson non ha gli occhi freddi e penetranti e l’aspetto spaventoso e disumano del killer, è soltanto un vecchio eroso dal cancro. Secondo il personale della casa di cura non arriverà a Natale, anche perché preferisce avere la testa lucida e non assumere morfina. Joe sarebbe certamente mosso a pietà se, come molti a Hillview Manor, non pensasse alla ragazza che il mostro ha ucciso, a tutto quello che la vittima si è persa: ragazzi, amore, matrimonio, dei bambini. E se non avesse ben chiaro lo scopo per cui si aggira in quell’ospizio: mollare quel ridicolo lavoro di buttafuori in pub di terza categoria; riuscire a laurearsi, e avere finalmente soldi a sufficienza per occuparsi di sua madre – una donna con terribili sbalzi di umore, che cerca di lenire la sua sofferenza interiore con massicce dosi di vodka – e di Jeremy, il fratellino autistico che trascorre pomeriggi interi a guardare i Pirati dei Caraibi. Quel vecchio dai capelli bianchi, lunghi e radi, dagli zigomi sporgenti e dalle fulminee e ciniche osservazioni sulla vita e sugli esseri umani è comunque fermamente intenzionato a spiazzarlo. Quando gli dice che gli fornirà una dichiarazione in articulo mortis – la confessione di un uomo in fin di vita – e gli racconterà tutto di sé, a partire dal Vietnam dove ha imparato a uccidere, fino a quel giorno del 1980, il ragazzo sa che se non lascerà immediatamente quell’ospizio, per tornare a occuparsi della madre e del fratellino, il suo compito di inglese si trasformerà nell’indagine più pericolosa della sua vita. Con un ritmo vertiginoso e «un finale perfetto sotto ogni punto di vista» (Booklist), «il debutto magistrale di Allen Eskens» (Publishers Weekly) è un romanzo sconvolgente che la critica ha collocato tra Mystic River di Dennis Lehane e Il buio oltre la siepe di Harper Lee. La storia di un ragazzo che scopre la chiave d’accesso alle verità sepolte dietro i silenzi della vita quotidiana. «Sullo sfondo di un inverno brutale nel Minnesota, Verità sepolte è molto più di un romanzo di suspense. È una storia che tocca il cuore. I personaggi sono reali come i miei vicini di casa, la trama avvincente e la scrittura eccellente». Suspense Magazine «Eskens cattura il lettore e non abbandona più la presa». Library Journal «Niente è più pericoloso che difendere un vecchio condannato per un crimine orribile». Kirkus Review

Allen Eskens

About

Books

Join the club