Review of The Life We Bury (Joe Talbert #1) by Allen Eskens

The pacing of The Life We Bury built from slow and steady to a whirlwind. It always seemed clear that we would have clean resolutions to the mystery; the sometimes-gruesome aspects of the path to the story's final answers were the surprise for me.

In this mystery by Allen Eskens, Joe Talbert is busy trying to build a life apart from his mother, who's an addict, and his brother, who has autism. Joe is far from a star college student, but between his job as a bouncer and his dedicated studying, he's learning a lot and getting through.

When he meets the elderly Carl Iverson at a nearby nursing home, he's eager to hear Carl's life story in order to complete a school assignment. But Carl is a convicted murderer who was released from jail because he's so gravely ill and close to death. And his story is introducing more questions than answers for Joe--who is coping with his own complicated personal challenges but can't leave Carl's story alone.

Joe's mom is an unredeemable, selfish, and immature character with a bad-news boyfriend who's the perfect punching bag for Joe. Joe's brother can't live independently, but when Joe must bring him into his busy college life, he conveniently inspires the decoding element for an unfolding mystery related to Carl. Joe's neighbor Lila is a tough young woman who's endured hardship and is slow to trust. You might see Lila and Joe's budding love coming from a mile off (his early, eager interest in her came off as a little strong to me, as she clearly wasn't initially open to him or to a relationship).

Carl is a dying man who's seemingly been wrongly convicted of murder, and if Joe and Lila can just prove their hunches to be true before he passes away, they can clear his name.

The pacing of this one felt strange to me. The Life We Bury offers a slow start focused on Joe's personal situation, and when the mystery ramped up to a dramatic whirlwind tempo toward the end, I was left feeling startled and a little bit discombobulated.

It never felt as though the loose ends that needed resolving would be anything but cleanly unraveled--and then some (there's a windfall that seemed potentially unnecessary and overly convenient, if heartwarming); the rough, sometimes gruesome path to the final answers was the surprise for me.

I had no idea this was the first in a series; it didn't feel to me as though it was leading up to another book. I listened to The Life We Bury as an audiobook.

More mystery novels to check out

This is the first in a series of three books about Joe Talbert.

If you like reading mysteries, you might enjoy some of my Bossy reviews of other mystery novels.