Starred Review. Novel of the year? Read on.
Let me start with a couple qualifiers. I do not add a lot of reviews to this blog. I am not really qualified to write competently. I never felt I could give a book the justice an author deserves. I am not a professional reader or reviewer. Hell I am barely smart enough to compute a sentence. I am unpaid, and read for enjoyment. I read about 60, maybe a couple more, books a year. I read mostly crime suspense novels. You get the picture.
My wife is responsible for my reading love, somehow she recognized my reading likes early in our lives, spanning 35 years now. My mother was an avid reader. Three of my all time novels, which span 30 plus years are Vince Flynns Term Limits, Chuck Logan’s The Big Law, and Stephen Hunters, Time to Hunt. You might see the connection to these three. BTW: Minnesota author and Vietnam war veteran Chuck Logan needs more attention.
Sorry back on track. Every once in a while a book comes along and shocks me. Rattling my central nervous system. Blowing away what few brain cells I have left. Knocking the wind out of me. Chris Whitaker’s All Colors Of The Dark has kaboomed my reading. Blown and next reading for weeks to recover. I almost feel bad for the next 3-4 books I read. You might have surmised that I really liked the novel.
Onward.
Whitaker creates a multi generational saga spanning 35-40 years. He created a character driven masterpiece. Patch who is a pirate, Saint, a hard driven bee keeper and so much more, Misty, so sad you’ll damn near cry, Norma, an old school grandmother with so much love it damn near kills her. Chief Nix, I’ll say no more, Charlotte who you’ll want to bring home and adopt. Did I say yet, this is a hard core crime novel?
Without trying to spoil the plot, Whitaker goes bold and mixes all these characters and a couple more into a hard core, heartbreaking, epic saga. Don’t worry crime fiction fans, tear jerking aside, this is a hard core crime novel.
You’ll be tempted to read this in a sitting or two. Don’t. Sit back, absorb the timeframes, the scene settings and what Whitaker is plotting with his characters. There is some serious slaps in the face and reading and absorbing this will leave you going to bed in wonderment.
Is this novel of 2024? Probably. Does it go into my hall of fame. Hell yes.
