What I’m Reading: The Shadows We Hid

I saw that Allen Eskens has a new book, The Shadows We Hid.  I have read another book of his and LOVED it.  I highly recommend it and suggest you read The Life We Bury first.

It’s the first book of the series and I adored that book.  This new book, The Shadows We Hid, is the sequel.

Both of these books take place in southern Minnesota.  The people live in Austin Minnesota and in the Twin Cities.  They go to college at Mankato State where I went…it’s all familiar and feels like home when I read the books.

The books are both written in first person.  I love first person.  I love it a lot.  If the writer is good, I can easily put myself in their position and completely imagine myself as the character.  I love that.

There is mystery to the story…and best of all, it’s believable mystery.  So often with a mystery either it’s obvious who the killer is or the killer is so not obvious that it doesn’t make sense.  This one is perfect.  I loved the book.

Often when I listen to audiobooks I listen at 1.5 speed.  This one I didn’t.  I listened at 1.25 and savored it.

Here’s what Amazon has to say:
“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.”

Amazon readers gave the book 4.6 stars.  In Amazon ratings, that’s an awesome rating.  I’d have to agree.  I listened to this one over the weekend, and it really made my weekend enjoyable.

Find Allen Eskens books HERE on Amazon.  I highly recommend them.