Why a Booktrail?
2000s: A journalist finds out that a man with the same name as him, has been murdered.
The Shadows We Hide
What you need to know before your trail
Joe Talbert, Jr. has never once met his namesake. Now out of college, a cub reporter for the Associated Press in Minneapolis, he stumbles across a story describing the murder of a man named Joseph Talbert in a small town in southern Minnesota.
Full of curiosity about whether this man might be his father, Joe is shocked to find that none of the town’s residents have much to say about the dead man – other than that his death was long overdue. Joe discovers that the dead man was a loathsome lowlife who cheated his neighbors, threatened his daughter, and squandered his wife’s inheritance after she, too, passed away – an inheritance that may now be Joe’s.
Mired in uncertainty and plagued by his own devastated relationship with his mother, who is seeking get back into her son’s life, Joe must put together the missing pieces of his family history – before his quest for discovery threatens to put him in a grave of his own.
Travel Guide
BookTrail Travel to Minnesota
The story starts in Minneapolis where Joe Talbert is working as a journalist for the Associated Press in Minneapolis. Joe lives with his girlfriend, Lila and they have custody of his younger autistic brother, Jeremy. Lila is about to take the bar exam so she’s very nervous and tense. The whole appartment is an argument waiting to happen.
Joe has problems at work. He’s written a story about a senator and that senator is now threatening to sue. As a result, Joe has to leave work for a while.
So far so bad. But then what do you do, when life throws not just one curveball but a great big giant wrecking ball. There has been a murder not far from Minneapolis of a man named Joe Talbert.
Buckley
“An hour north of the Iowa border”, south of Minnesota and where the second part of the story takes place. Joe travels here to find himself – literally. At least his namesake who has been murdered. Missing memories and buried family ties come to the fore.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Shadows We Hide
Destination: Minneapolis, Buckley Author/guide: Allen Eskens Departure Time: 2000s
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