College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe’s life is ever the same.Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran–and a convicted … convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home, after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.
As Joe writes about Carl’s life, especially Carl’s valor in Vietnam, he cannot reconcile the heroism of the soldier with the despicable acts of the convict. Joe, along with his skeptical female neighbor, throws himself into uncovering the truth, but he is hamstrung in his efforts by having to deal with his dangerously dysfunctional mother, the guilt of leaving his autistic brother vulnerable, and a haunting childhood memory.
Thread by thread, Joe unravels the tapestry of Carl’s conviction. But as he and Lila dig deeper into the circumstances of the crime, the stakes grow higher. Will Joe discover the truth before it’s too late to escape the fallout?
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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Stop reading reviews and read this book! I have had this on my TBR for awhile. I finally came to it and I’m kicking myself for waiting so long to read it. Actually, I was listening to it on Audible. The narrator, Zach Villa, is excellent. I would definitely listen to more books narrated by him.
The story is about a college student, Joseph Talbert, who is assigned to write the biography of an older person. Not having someone close by that he wants to interview, he goes to a nursing home to interview a resident. It turns out the resident, Carl, is a convicted rapist and murderer who had been transferred to the home from prison. But the story of this man’s life is only half of this book. The other half of the book is about Joe and his brother, Jeremy, who is autistic and is mentally a child. Their story was just as compelling to me as Carl’s story and the search for the truth. I don’t want to go more into the plot but trust me, there are plot twist, surprises and enough action to keep you reading. Max Rupert is the detective.
After reading the book, I looked at the questions asked and it seems that the Kindle version had some errors in it. Please remember this book has been out a few years and is most likely updated with the errors fixed. If you don’t care to find out then get the Audible version. You won’t see them or hear them as they weren’t in the audio.
I would also suggest having some tissue ready if you cry when a book touches you. I needed a few.
I liked the characters, the story and the narration of the audiobook. I looked forward to going on walks just to listen to it.
I listened to the audio version of this book. The narrator who reads the part of the main character Joe was so realistic that I was drawn into the story. Love, love, love this author and have read every book in this “series”.
I absolutely loved this book.
Everything about it.
And can’t wait to read the next one by Allen Eskens.
This is a very interesting and rewarding book. It’s hard to categorize it perfectly because there are so many things going on. A mystery, yes, but there is also the emotionally twisted lives of all the characters. Each character has a story and they are all realistic and believable. I so enjoyed this book and will be checking out more from Eskens.
Allen Eskens hits all the important elements of great storytelling with this book. Characters with depth, heroism, brotherly love, wit, romance, suspense, the momentum explodes toward the end including rapid fire curve balls from out of the blue. Add to that a constantly evolving plot and standing up for what you believe in, this is definite winner on all accounts. Classified as a mystery, it brings in elements of drama, crime, and overcoming challenge to mention a few. Having read his most recent book prior to this book, I plan to read his others. Do yourselves a favor and add him to your must read list!
This was an excellent book. I had a hard time putting it down. Very intense and well written. After reading this one I just had to have Allen’s other books as well, can’t wait to read those too!
An unforgettable story with amazing character development. Best debut novel I’ve ever read.
I had received this book a while ago and put it aside. While it sounded interesting, I wasn’t quite ready to read it yet. Recently, a friend had read it and she gave it a great review so I decided to give it a try. I should have read this sooner!
This book is about Joe Talbert, a University of Minnesota student who is assigned to write a biography of someone who has lived an interesting life. Joe chooses to write his biography about a man (Carl Iverson) who is in a nursing home after being medically paroled from prison where he had been serving time for thirty years for the murder of a fourteen-year-old girl. Carl agrees to tell Joe his story – he says it will be a “dying declaration”. A story where Carl vehemently denies any involvement with the murder.
During the course of writing the paper, Joe meets another student, Lila, who lives in his apartment building. She gets drawn into the story and starts to help Joe. Also, during this time, Joe has problems arising with his mom and autistic brother that he has to deal with. As Joe and Lila dig deeper and deeper into this mystery, they discover that they need to enlist the help of the police.
It is a relatively quick read, it flows nicely but keeps the suspense. I definitely recommend this book.
I met Allen at the Twin Cities Book Festival a few months ago and he was so charming that I knew I would read his books, in chronological order. This is the first, and hooks you fast. A fellow Minnesota writer, I enjoy his familiar sensibilities and scenes. We do not share genre, but I love a good thriller! Start with this one and carry on!
An amazing story of grief, tragedy and triumph when a college student decides to do an interview with a patient at the local nursing home… who truly has a story to tell.
I needed a day to figure out my thoughts and how I was going to write my review. I have never read anything from this author. I am glad that I picked this book up a a local store. I will continue reading the rest of the books in this series. Highly recommend this book. I really like our main character Joe taking care of himself eland trying to protect his brother from harm.
About book
Our main character Joe is young college student trying to figure out life. Going to school and managing his mother and his brother. Joe is given assignment to write about someone. Joe meets a local man named Carl who is a nursing home left alone to die. Until Joe and his neighbor find out all Carl secrets and try and save him. .Again I highly recommend this book.
This is a multi-award-winning murder mystery. It is well written and moves right along, always tempting you to read one more chapter, because the 54 chapters tend to be quite short. The narrative would be particularly interesting to Minnesotans, because the author, Allen Eskens, is a long-time Minnesota resident and he set his story in Minneapolis and Austin, mostly. I heard him give a reading at a bookshop, and that made me eager to read his books. I started with this one.
Loved his style and story base was so original. Not like anything I’ve read before. He has become my favorite author. I work p/t in a local library. Have recommended this book to patrons and not recd one bad comment back. I read everything he writes now!
This is a well-written mystery we read for my book discussion group. On one level, it’s a murder mystery, but on another it’s a family tale. The characters, particularly protagonist Joe and the old man Carl are compelling. I hear there’s a sequel, and I’m looking forward to reading it.
Since I lived during the Vietnam War I understood some of the dynamics surrounding the main character. This is a very interesting and sad story but a few twist and turns set you spinning in circles. Two college students thrown into solving a murder was a bit unrealistic to me but I kept turning pages!!! Worth the read for sure!
Good concept. Did not go where I expected.
Characters fit the plot. Kept you wondering what happened, and how was everything going to unravel.
well written book.reads smoothly,quickly,characters have depth,they make you want to care about and buy into the story they are telling,I would highly recommend reading this,and any other book by this author
This book has such an unexpected plot of twists and turns. Great plot, enjoyable read and wonderful characters.