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) 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 … 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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After reading The Life We Bury, I was eager to read the sequel. Joe is an extremely flawed character, but he’s also relatable and tenacious. I loved Kathy’s character arc. I hope there will be more Talbert books in the future.
In the sequel to The Life We Bury, it is now six years later, and Joe Talbert is a reporter for the Associated Press. He has helped his girlfriend Lila get through law school, and she is currently preparing for the bar exam. The two of them are still guardians for his autistic brother, Jeremy, and Joe has had no contact with his mother in years
Suddenly, there is trouble with his job in the form of a lawsuit that could end his hard-earned career. He also learns that a man who may be his father has been recently killed in a small town, Buckley, MN, and he is drawn to investigate against Lila’s better judgment. They have a serious argument, and he leaves to try and solve the mystery.
While investigating the murder of Joe (Toke) Talbert, Sr. Joe stumbles upon information that points to his inheriting a large fortune if it is proven he is Toke’s biological son. Toke was not a well-liked character in his community, and it is hard to get a grip on who didn’t want to kill him. Trouble seems to find Joe, and it is not long before he is in over his head.
Joe is a fantastically created character with many attractive characteristics and flaws. He believes he not good enough, and early on, we hear his thoughts, “I want to believe that I am a better man than I am, but I know that I am not. This one is on me, nobody else.”
He comments on the fact that people see him taking care of an autistic brother and helping a girlfriend through law school and think, “What a good guy that Joe Talbert is. They become so blinded by the gleam of my armor that they haven’t noticed it is only tinfoil.” This is pure Joe, unpretentious and unassuming.
I loved this book; it was full of twists and turns, and even Joe’s mother makes an appearance that made me what to jump out and warn him. With his usual aplomb, he handled it all with grace and an acceptance beyond his years. I gave this book five stars and look forward to reading the next in the series.
I finished this book yesterday. I really enjoyed this book didn’t want it to end. I really enjoy Allen Eskens books. They don’t disappoint me. I have to say this one is my favorite. I know he has one book book that I need to read. And can’t wait to get started. If you like twists and mystery I highly recommend his books. They are very unpredictable. This book is contiune from book one. I wish there was one more book. I would of like to know what happened to the characters and how they ended up. But I did enjoy the ending and how things went at the end. Glad that there was some happniess.
I could relate to Joe our main character a lot and how he handle his mother.
About Book:
Joe is now a reporter and how full custody of his brother now. Joe is living with his girlfriend together they are taking care of Jeremy. Joe finds out he is being sued and his boss just told him that his father has been killed. Joe never knew who is father was and had no idea where is was all this time. Until he decided to find out more about his father and who and what happened. This book takes different turns and again highly recommend.
Eskens follows up The Life We Bury with this classic sequel. When Joe Talbert Jr. finds out the father he never met is murdered, he investigates. And in a small town, everybody knows your name. Nothing goes as expected. The author keeps the reader engaged from start to finish, riding waves up and down, as the narrator comes to grip with his past, his present and future. You won’t see the ending until it hits you in the face. Stay up late reading this one.
The beloved characters he introduced in The Life We Bury return in author Allen Eskens’ follow up, The Shadows We Hide.
As the story opens, Joe has been Jeremy’s guardian for five years. After Joe rescued Jeremy from their mother’s home where he was subjected to abuse by Kathy’s boyfriend, Larry, Jeremy never returned to that residence. He has lived with Joe and Lila, who is studying for the upcoming Bar examination, while Joe works as a reporter for the Associated Press. His recent story about an incident of domestic violence involving State Senator Todd Dobbins, based upon information obtained from an anonymous source, has netted a lawsuit in which Joe and the Associated Press have been named as defendants. Joe laments that a week earlier he and his boss, Allison, “discussed whether my article would be submitted for Pulitzer consideration. Now we were talking about the end of my career.”
The timing is somewhat fortuitous, though, because Allison gives Joe a press release about the murder of a man named Joe Talbert, along with a mug shot. Although his father has always meant “less than nothing” to Joe, at that moment, “the myth that was my father began to grow flesh and bones.” Because they agree that it is a good time for Joe to take a leave of absence — while the lawsuit plays out — Joe has time to dig into the dead man’s past and determine whether he was, in fact, Joe’s biological father.
Joe finds that Joseph “Toke” Talbert’s criminal history included punching Joe’s mother in the stomach while she was carrying him — because Kathy refused to have an abortion. He is compelled to travel to Buckley when he learns that Toke’s wife, Jeannie, took her own life just six months earlier, and they had a daughter, Angel. He realizes that his fourteen-year-old half-sister has, with Toke’s death, been rendered an orphan and is now all alone in the world. Lila protests that she simply cannot take time out from her studies to care for Jeremy alone, but Joe will not be deterred. “All of my life I had been pretending that I didn’t care if my father existed, but now that he might be dead, he became real to me. Learning about the death of this man had ripped open the rotted planks that I had used to hide him.” And one sad truth became apparent: “I wanted to know my father.”
Thus, Eskens takes readers along on Joe’s fast-paced journey to the truth that is hiding in a little Minnesota town called Buckley. With Jeremy in tow, he takes a room at the town’s only motel and gets acquainted with the bartender, Vicky, a native, who fills him in on much of the history between Toke and the town’s other residents. That includes the death of Vicky’s own mother and the lingering bitterness her father harbored for Toke, who inherited the adjacent farm that belonged to his late wife’s family. But Toke swindled others, and was generally despised by the people of Buckley, as well as his own brother, Charlie, who has arrived on the scene, as well. While Angel’s life hangs in the balance, Joe finds himself in one precarious situation after another as he explores old resentments and rivalries, and hires a quintessential small-town attorney, Bob Mullens, to help him navigate the legal complications.
Eskens again spotlights the tender, protective relationship Joe has with his brother, Jeremy, as well as his complicated feelings for their mother, Kathy, in a compassionate, believable manner. Lila’s commitment to Joe is also tested as she struggles to maintain her focus on the culmination of her education and the need to pass the all-important Bar examination. And Eskens deftly keeps readers guessing about what really happened to Toke, as well as Jeannie and Angel, injecting shocking plot developments and legal twists at expertly-timed intervals. The closer Joe gets to finding out the truth, the more danger he finds himself in. Eskens again illustrates that Joe is resilient and clever as he calculates how to survive.
Ultimately, at its core, The Shadows We Hide is a touching exploration of the myriad ways in which family histories impact us in the present day and how our choices determine whether we will enjoy a different and, hopefully, better outcome than did those who went before us. It is a story about betrayals, redemption, forgiveness, and second chances.
For Joe, it is the telling of his journey to discover whether he is truly the “good guy” that everyone believes him to be. Self-doubt and feelings of not belonging have plagued Joe his entire life, in part because of his mother’s circumstances, but also because as a result of his father’s absence from his life. At the beginning of the story, his professional success is tenuous. He has long been waiting for “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.” But in Eskens’ skillful and empathetic hands, Joe grows into a man who has stared down and conquered the demons that have accompanied him his whole life. He has had an opportunity to “be a decent man” and made choices that dictate whether or not, in his own estimation, he is truly “a good man.” Learning the truth along with Joe is a moving, entertaining, and satisfying experience that might cause Eskens’ readers to ask themselves many of the same questions that Joe does.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book.
As the sequel to The Life We Bury, the story does not disappoint. The author stays true to the characters with unexpected twists once again.
This was a great sequel to The Life We Bury. The characters were clearly given their own personalities which allowed readers to form their own opinions of them. I did find the mean drug and alcohol addicted mother to be a stereotypical description to support both the first book from this author and this sequel. However, when the author suddenly decided to have the mother make a 360 degree change of personality it fell flat. I realize anyone can change after weeks of therapy, but her change was nothing short of totally miraculous. The plot was cleverly done even though some of the twists were predictable. The big final twist got me by surprise which doesn’t happen often. This is not a book to inform, although I did learn some self defense moves and how to escape a motel fire. I found the novel entertaining, absorbing, and a darn good read.
A terrific follow up to Allen Esken’s debut The Life We Bury. The Shadows We Hide picks up a couple of years later in the lives of the characters. A recent college graduate and now a cub reporter, the hero Joe Talbert learns of his father’s death. A father he never knew and never wanted to know. But circumstances lead him to investigate the man, what he’s done, and how his life can impact Joe’s now, even though he’s gone. Similar to Esken’s other work – the characters are as important as the story, and his investigation into the dynamic between Joe and his girlfriend, Joe and his mother, and Joe and his autistic brother are as important as the mystery itself. For those who love to investigate the human experience, along with the crimes, this is the book for you.
Richly textured. Riveting. Raw. This mystery is entirely unpredictable.
True to its title, The Shadows We Hide, by Allen Eskens, is one book on the surface, another underneath.
What we see at first glance is an AP reporter, Joe Talbert, fighting with his girlfriend and in trouble at work. When his boss shares a news story about a small town murder, our reporter decides to go see if the body found in the barn was his ne’er-do-well father. Joe uses his investigative skills to dig into the killing, and stirs up a hornet’s nest of trouble. Small towns are rife with secrets and Buckley, Minnesota is no exception. Dangerous skeletons are the only thing Joe finds as he unravels the past, skating on thin ice, his life on the line.
As we read on, we start to see the shadows that lurk below the surface of the action. Dark currents, deadly mixtures of emotions and human weaknesses, swirl about Joe from the beginning, eventually pulling him under. He fights for air, to do the right thing, but the stakes are high. If he doesn’t give up his source for that article at work, he’ll lose his job. If he reopens contact with his formerly drug-addicted mother, will she, or another bad boyfriend, kill Joe’s autistic brother? If the dead man, a bona fide ass hated by the entire town, is his father, did the sour apple fall far from the tree? And when Joe gets caught in the flow, will it cost him the love of his life?
I’ve enjoyed Eskens’ work since his debut novel, The Life We Bury, introduced us to Joe Talbert. The author’s stories are unpredictable, gritty, well-crafted, and explore the human condition. Those are all rare qualities, hard to do well. And with this story, Eskens continues to excel.
If you want a multi-textured detective tale, full of surprises, definitely put this one on your Christmas list.
I am a great fan of Allen Eskens’ work and have read every one of his books. This one was another exciting, well written, and intriguing novel which I had great difficulty putting down when real life called. It was a very satisfying sequel to The Life We Bury and even if you have not read the first book you will still thoroughly enjoy this story line with its twists and turns. Joe Talbert Jr., a reporter for the Associated Press, learns of the death of his father through a press release and his curiosity drives him to look into the death further. Joe’s father, “Toke”, was not a kind or pleasant man and there were a number of people who were not at all disturbed by his passing. Joe only knows what his mother has told him, as his father deserted her when she was pregnant. Murder, suicide, theft, drug overdose and the settling of a large estate all play their part in making this a very highly recommendable read.
Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for a review copy. This is my honest opinion.
I had heard great things about this author, this is the first book that I’ve read of his. I understand that this is a follow up to “The Life We Bury” in which many of the main characters were introduced. Perhaps it would have been better to read that book first but at any rate here is what I thought.
Joe Talbert has his first “real” job after college working for the Associated Press and has been doing a great job. Recently he has written a story about a man who is running for the Senate which was quite volatile. This was discussed at the beginning of the book and then not again until the end.
Joe had a difficult childhood being raised by an alcoholic mother and caring for his autistic brother, Jeremy. He is living with his long time girlfriend Lila who is about to take the bar exam, she shares in the care of Jeremy while attending law school. I would have liked to know more about Lila but perhaps she was described more in the first book.
Joe has never known his father, his mother refusing to tell him who he is. An article appears in a Minnesota newspaper that lists Joe Talbert as being deceased with some suspicious circumstances. Joe is quite the detective and takes it upon himself to go to the small town where his father apparently had lived and try to find out about him. What he finds is surprising and this is where our mystery comes in. He also learns that he has more family than he thought he had! Then there is the mention of an inheritance, Joe has no idea about any of this but it’s a small town and people talk. “A word he used — inheritance, a word that seemed out of place in any discussion of my family. Nothing I’d come across so far suggested that Toke Talbert would die with more than a month’s rent in his pocket”.
This is not a fast paced, page turning type of book. It is a great character study with a mystery to unravel. I did find myself “waiting for the action” to occur during at least half of the book, but I persevered. I won’t go through the plot as you can read the blurb for that. The story takes place both where Joe lives, the Minneapolis area and the small town of Buckley, Minnesota where his father was found dead. We are introduced to some interesting, if somewhat predictable, characters. The sheriff, J. Kimball, his deputies, Calder and Lewis, the owner of the only motel in town, The Caspen Inn and the waitress Vicky who seems more than interested in Joe. I enjoyed getting to know these characters and how they would react to the solving of the mystery of who killed Joe’s father.
For me this was a 3 star book until the ending which I loved!! It was the unraveling of a very intricately plotted mystery which took me by surprise, that bumped it up to a 4*
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through Edelweiss.