The Shadows We Hide by Allen Eskens (2018)

The Shadows We Hide by Allen Eskens (2018)

The sequel to The Life We Bury featuring Joe Talbert uncovering another mystery, this time one closer to home.

Laura’s Rating: 4/5 Stars

Plot: Joe Talbert finds out that a man of the same name was recently killed in a town a couple hours away. Despite having never met his father, Joe thinks this man could be his dad and finds himself plunged into the middle of an investigation. 

Opinion: It took me a minute to get into it, but eventually I was pretty invested. The book is different from the first one but does feel like a continuation, with a similar tone and style. There’s not much left to tell with the original plot so this book invents a whole new plot line and just keeps a few of the main characters. It does follow up on a couple events from the first book, but you don’t necessarily need to read that one first to enjoy this one.

I have just a couple critiques: An event happens that really annoyed me, so that was tricky for me to get past, but luckily it’s not a focus of the book. The other thing is that there are almost too many twists — every time something is wrapped up, another element is introduced. The book isn’t crazy long, but it honestly could have been edited down a bit. Overall, I still enjoyed the book and I’d recommend it, especially for fans of The Life We Bury.