NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that hits like a sledgehammer . . . an absolutely must-read novel (Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl).

Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today
The Boston Globe's #1 Thriller/Mystery of 2024 So Far
A Best Book of the Year: Washington Post, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews

Kept me frantically turning the pages and somehow made me cry at the end . . . Brava!--Kristin Hannah, author of The Women

Melds tense suspense with a powerful exploration of devotion, obsession, and love.--People (Best New Books)

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the smalltown of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.

When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges--Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake.

Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession and the blinding light of hope.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that hits like a sledgehammer . . . an absolutely must-read novel (Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl).

Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today
The Boston Globe's #1 Thriller/Mystery of 2024 So Far
A Best Book of the Year: Washington Post, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews

Kept me frantically turning the pages and somehow made me cry at the end . . . Brava!--Kristin Hannah, author of The Women

Melds tense suspense with a powerful exploration of devotion, obsession, and love.--People (Best New Books)

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the smalltown of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.

When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges--Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake.

Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession and the blinding light of hope.

Winner of the Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel from the Crime Writers' Association (UK)
Winner for Best International Crime Fiction from Australian Crime Writers Association
An Instant New York Times Bestseller

A vibrant, engrossing, unputdownable thriller that packs a serious emotional punch. One of those rare books that surprise you along the way and then linger in your mind long after you have finished it.
--Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds

Right. Wrong. Life is lived somewhere in between.

Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids.

Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he's still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother.

Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released. And Duchess and Walk must face the trouble that comes with his return. We Begin at the End is an extraordinary novel about two kinds of families--the ones we are born into and the ones we create.

It's rare that a novel can be both brilliantly comic and tragic, and balance the two so effortlessly. -- Sun

Nothing is as it seems in Tall Oaks, a small California town where everyone knows each other and violent crime is unheard of. The community's idyllic façade is shattered when a kidnapper in a clown costume snatches three-year-old Harry Monroe from his own home. Despite sensational media coverage and dogged police investigations, the abduction remains a mystery. Three months later, Harry is still missing and most people have moved on, except for Jessica, Harry's distraught mother, and Jim, the local sheriff. Anyone in Tall Oaks could be a suspect: Jerry, the loner with a secret that only his mother knows; Jared, the roving lothario; teenage Manny, an aspiring gangster; and even Jessica's Aunt Henrietta and Uncle Roger, who are clearly hiding something.
Chris Whitaker's debut novel, with its striking blend of tragedy and offbeat humor, was awarded the U.K. Crime Writers' Association New Blood Dagger Award. The Guardian praised this beguiling novel as a pleasingly unusual mixture of a psychological thriller and screwball comedy, noting that the combination of verve, humor, and pathos make it well worth a read.

A gripping debut. -- Mail on Sunday

A brilliant, beautiful, sad, funny book ... It made me laugh, but also made me cry more than any other book I've read this year. -- Emma Flint, author of Little Deaths

Completely blew me away. -- Lisa Hall, author of Between You and Me and The Party

Chris Whitaker builds an entire town in the reader's head and masterfully inhabits it comic, poignant, gripping life. Tall Oaks becomes a part of you. -- David Whitehouse, author of Mobile Library and Bed

Winner of the Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel from the Crime Writers' Association (UK)
Winner for Best International Crime Fiction from Australian Crime Writers Association
An Instant New York Times Bestseller

A vibrant, engrossing, unputdownable thriller that packs a serious emotional punch. One of those rare books that surprise you along the way and then linger in your mind long after you have finished it.
--Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds

Right. Wrong. Life is lived somewhere in between.

Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids.

Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he's still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother.

Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released. And Duchess and Walk must face the trouble that comes with his return. We Begin at the End is an extraordinary novel about two kinds of families--the ones we are born into and the ones we create.

Winner of the Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel from the Crime Writers' Association (UK)
Winner for Best International Crime Fiction from Australian Crime Writers Association
An Instant New York Times Bestseller

A vibrant, engrossing, unputdownable thriller that packs a serious emotional punch. One of those rare books that surprise you along the way and then linger in your mind long after you have finished it.
--Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds

Right. Wrong. Life is lived somewhere in between.

Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids.

Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he's still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother.

Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released. And Duchess and Walk must face the trouble that comes with his return. Chris Whitaker's We Begin at the End is an extraordinary novel about two kinds of families--the ones we are born into and the ones we create.

Dos amigos de la infancia separados por un crimen devastador.
Una búsqueda obsesiva de la verdad.

«Impecable, emocionante, demoledora. Bonnie Garmus

Tras alcanzar un éxito sensacional entre la crítica y el público con Empezamos por el final, Chris Whitaker vuelve a conquistarnos con Todos los colores de la oscuridad, una ambiciosa novela que combina el misterio, el thriller y una arrebatadora historia de amor. Esta incisiva exploración del alma humana a través de la fina línea que separa el triunfo de la tragedia se ha convertido desde su aparición en un fenómeno internacional.

Monta Clare, Misuri, 1975. Mientras la guerra de Vietnam llega a su fin y Muhammad Ali se enfrenta a Joe Frazier, la desaparición de varias niñas quiebra la sensación de seguridad característica de esa pequeña comunidad, que se agrava cuando Joseph Patch Macauley es secuestrado. Su mejor amiga, Saint Brown, se propondrá encontrarlo a toda costa, pero, pese a sus esfuerzos, Patch permanecerá casi un año en total oscuridad en un sótano con la única compañía de una niña llamada Grace, a quien escucha, pero nunca ve, y que lo visita en secreto. Tras ser liberado, la búsqueda de Grace se convertirá en el hilo conductor de la vida de Patch, que tomará giros insospechados a lo largo de dos décadas, mientras Saint luchará por hallar la verdad y recuperar a su amigo, a quien cree perdido en un oscuro recuerdo.

Con una prosa evocativa, llena de emoción y de humanidad, dos héroes vívidamente dibujados y una cadencia que hace imposible abandonar la lectura, Chris Whitaker nos ofrece una epopeya deslumbrante sobre el poder de la lealtad y la fuerza de la perseverancia frente a las adversidades más abrumadoras.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that hits like a sledgehammer . . . an absolutely must-read novel (Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl).

Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today

The Boston Globe's #1 Thriller/Mystery of 2024 So Far

A Washington Post and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year

Melds tense suspense with a powerful exploration of devotion, obsession, and love.--People (Best New Books)

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the smalltown of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.

When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges--Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake.

Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession and the blinding light of hope.

El mejor thriller literario del año según The Guardian. Un libro que todo el mundo califica de obra maestra.

Duchess Day Radley es una joven de trece años que se autoproclama «proscrita . Las normas son para otra gente. Ella es la fiera protectora de su hermano de cinco años, Robin, y la figura adulta para Star, su madre soltera, incapaz de cuidar de sí misma y mucho menos de sus dos hijos.
Walk es ahora el jefe de policía local, pero sigue intentando sanar la vieja herida de haber sido el testigo que tres décadas atrás mandó a prisión a su mejor amigo, Vincent King, que se dispone a salir de la cárcel. Y Duchess y Walk deben afrontar el problema que supondrá su vuelta.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

2021 Hudson Booksellers Best of the Year / An Instant New York Times Best Seller / Winner of the Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel from the Crime Writers' Association (UK) / Winner for Best International Crime Fiction from Australian Crime Writers Association / A Good Morning America Buzz Pick / #1 Indie Next Pick / A Lariat Reading List Pick

A vibrant, engrossing, unputdownable thriller that packs a serious emotional punch. One of those rare books that surprise you along the way and then linger in your mind long after you have finished it. ―Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds

Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids.

Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he's still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother.

Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released. And Duchess and Walk must face the trouble that comes with his return. We Begin at the End is an extraordinary novel about two kinds of families―the ones we are born into and the ones we create.

There are two kinds of families: the ones we are born into and the ones we create.

Walk has never left the coastal California town where he grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he's still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. Now, thirty years later, Vincent is being released.

Duchess is a thirteen-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Her mother, Star, grew up with Walk and Vincent. Walk is in overdrive trying to protect them, but Vincent and Star seem bent on sliding deeper into self-destruction. Star always burned bright, but recently that light has dimmed, leaving Duchess to parent not only her mother but her five-year-old brother. At school the other kids make fun of Duchess--her clothes are torn, her hair a mess. But let them throw their sticks, because she'll throw stones. Rules are for other people. She's just trying to survive and keep her family together.

A fortysomething-year-old sheriff and a thirteen-year-old girl may not seem to have a lot in common. But they both have come to expect that people will disappoint you, loved ones will leave you, and if you open your heart it will be broken. So when trouble arrives with Vincent King, Walk and Duchess find they will be unable to do anything but usher it in, arms wide closed.

Chris Whitaker has written an extraordinary novel about people who deserve so much more than life serves them. At times devastating, with flashes of humor and hope throughout, it is ultimately an inspiring tale of how the human spirit prevails and how, in the end, love--in all its different guises--wins.