The Shadows We Hide

June 15, 2018

After a spate of mysteries featuring Max Rupert, the Barry-winning, Edgar-nominated Eskens returns to the protagonist of his breakout debut, The Life We Bury. Now a cub reporter, Joe Talbert Jr. learns that the father he never met has been murdered, and he heads to the remote Minnesota town where the deed was done. No one there has anything good to say about the deceased, and Joe soon finds his own life up for grabs. With a 35,000-copy first printing.

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Starred review from September 3, 2018
Joe Talbert, last seen in Edgar-finalist Eskens’s debut, 2014’s The Life We Bury, is now a Minneapolis-based Associated Press reporter. In this brilliant sequel full of deeply developed characters, Talbert feels compelled to investigate after he runs across a story detailing the murder of Joe “Toke” Talbert, a person he never met but could have been his father, in the small southern Minnesota town of Buckley. A junk car collector rumored to be involved in more than a few felonious crimes, Toke could have been killed by any number of locals. Talbert’s search for answers becomes complicated when he discovers that Toke’s wife recently committed suicide and his late father stood in line to inherit millions. Eskens keeps readers guessing until the last pages in this darkly lyrical and brutally intimate story of one man’s journey of self-discovery. Agent: Amy Cloughley, Kimberley Cameron Agency.

October 1, 2018
In this sequel to Eskens' debut thriller, The Life We Bury? (2014), Joe Talbert is a reporter for the Associated Press in Minneapolis when he's faced with a handful of emergencies. First, he's sued for defamation by a state senator whose sex scandal Talbert's reporting revealed; Talbert won't give up his source, leaving his career uncertain. Then he learns that a Joseph Talbert has been killed in a small town just hours away; could it be the father he has never known? Joe leaves the apartment he shares with girlfriend Lila, who's studying for the bar exam, and his younger, autistic brother, Jeremy, to check out the murder. But his nosing around is not particularly welcome: his relationship to the victim, known as Toke Talbert (whom no one in town is sorry to see dead), is suspect, especially with a sizable inheritance at stake from land handed down to Toke's wife, who committed suicide months earlier. This may lack some of the tension of Eskens' debut, but murder, arson, betrayal, and reconciliation will keep pages turning and leave readers eager for more of Joe Talbert.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)