mystery
Walk is the town sheriff of his small home town community.
When he was a teen, his best friend, Vincent, was sent to jail for the murder
of a local girl. That girl’s sister has
grown up to have a lot of issues with drugs and she is not doing a great job
parenting her 13yo daughter, Duchess, and 5yo son, Robin. Walk has always kept an eye on Duchess and Robin,
understanding the difficulty of their circumstances. However, tragedy strikes
Duchess’ family shortly after Vincent is released from his 30-year prison term
and Walk finds himself fighting for Duchess, Vincent, and himself.
I needed an adjustment period to get used to Chris Whitaker’s
writing style. He employed brief, blunt sentences that sometimes really needed
more of a preamble or explanation or complete sentence structure. I often had to re-read sentences and sections
trying to follow their meaning. But his characters were terrific. I respected
Walk right from the beginning. He was
kind, patient, and was the sort of guy who did what needed to be done. And my
heart went out to Duchess, trying to do her best and be everything to her
brother. Damaged characters filled the pages. Almost everyone was guilty of
something.
The mystery Walk attempted to solve held my curiosity and I
wanted to keep reading to make sure Duchess and Robin would be okay. Aside from
my problem with Whitaker’s writing style, I appreciated the crafting of the
story itself. The sequence of events was done very well. While some mysteries
were predictable there were still a few surprises at the end. This was both a
tragic tale and a heartwarming tale in some ways. Mostly, though, it was sad.
Thankfully, there was hope. I will say that I don’t really like the title, We Begin at the End, though. It’s based on a character’s comment but I don’t feel it makes sense as
a title for the novel.
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