Name: Jan Talkington's review of The Shadows We Hide by Allen Eskens
Item: The Shadows We Hide
Rating: 4
Author: Jan Talkington

Allen Eskens

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

Jan Talkington

Colleen

4 Stars
 
*A bleak but engaging and suspenseful mystery*


I read the first book in this series, The Life We Bury, about a year and half ago and was captivated by it. But it was admittedly a pretty bleak story, so I wasn’t in a rush to read the next book. I tried starting The Shadows We Hide a couple of months ago but realized within the first couple of pages that I just wasn’t in the mood for it. But then January rolled around and that fits “bleak” to a tee. 

I’d forgotten that this series is written in first person, present tense. So that caused quite a few annoyed sighs until I got invested enough in the story to get distracted from the drudgery that is present tense novels.

The Shadows We Hide takes place at least five years after The Life We Bury and is once again narrated by Joe Talbert. But whereas in the first book Joe was a plucky underdog who was easy to root for despite his moral ambiguity, in this installment he developed into a selfish jerk. He even admits so. And even when I was wrapped up in the plot, there were times when I really, really wanted to punch Joe-the-jerk in the face.


  “I always expected the world to someday figure out that I didn’t belong here, that I had risen far above my ditch-digging station, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when it all started falling apart.”

Having screwed up his life, Joe basically decides to have a quarter-life crisis and make his life worse by going to investigate the death of his deadbeat dad that he never even met. Of course, there ends up being a lot more to the death of Joe Sr. than met the eye. I won’t give away the plot, but as I mentioned, the story did keep me engaged and guessing. Sure, some twists required a little suspension of belief, but I was still glued to the page. And despite Joe dirtbag having a very punchable face, there was some good character development and surprisingly emotional moments in the story.

I mentioned that the story is notably bleak, but I will also mention that it needs a lot of content warnings including murder, suicide, drug addiction, alcoholism, self-harm, abuse, parental neglect, rape, and infidelity. These are described in varying degrees of detail. While it certainly is not the most graphic of books, it also isn’t for the faint of heart. All of the characters were morally grey at best. But they felt believably flawed. Despite disliking many of the actions of the characters, I was undeniably engaged in the story and will likely read more of Eskens’ work in the future.

Side Note: The first book is listed as #1 in both the Joe Talbert series and Max Rupert series. The Shadows We Hide is listed as Joe Talbert #2 and Max Rupert #5, but I’m not sure why the latter is included since Max Rupert wasn’t really in this book. Unless I totally missed it, he was only mentioned in passing.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 3 Stars
Writing Style: 4 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 4 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 4 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Originality: 3 Stars

it's been 3 years since I read the first book in this series so I was glad for the references back to that book and the detail to jog my memory. Another good story by Mr. Eskens.

Jan Talkington &
The Shadows We Hide by Allen Eskens

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The Shadows We Hide by Allen Eskens