Whitaker’s story effectively bridges two genre, part murder mystery, part family drama, and written so beautifully to be considered literary fiction. So that makes three genre, and fantastic in each regard. What strikes you first is the spare prose, not giving too much away, just enough to impart the action and intent of the characters. It has the effect of making the reader lean forward and pay closer attention, to catch the narrator’s meaning, like trying to understand a storyteller who is reluctant to share too much too soon. While many authors quickly load the reader with detail in an effort to draw in and immerse the reader quickly in a new world, Whitaker doesn’t feel like he cares about the reader— sort of like hey, you’ll have to pay attention and keep pace with me to get this story, so step it up, dear reader. We are not being lured in; you’re have to do some work here.

We have a situation where the unresolved sins of the past are seriously calling for retribution and resolution on the forthcoming generation, where mistakes made by the parents are visiting their consequences on the children, and requiring courageous acts to end the suffering. Our two generations are the adults, a group who shared a childhood and adolescence in the small coastal California town of Cape Haven; and their children, who suffer their poor choices and are forced to be adults too soon. The main protagonist is Walk, town sheriff, his best friend Vincent King, and their high school sweethearts Martha May and Star Radley. Gradually revealed is the tragic death of Star’s younger sister Sissy, and its circumstances that lead to the twenty-five year prison sentence for Vincent. Star has two children in that span, 13 year old Dutchess and five year old Robin. Dutchess takes care of her brother with the greatest care and concern, where her mother can’t even care for herself. Walk, Star and Vincent seem frozen in time, as though Sissy’s death was yesterday and they are mired in it, failing to understand and resolve the loss. Each holds secrets from the others, and from themselves, as though walking through life, adolescent understandings with forty-something lives and responsibilities. It will require Walk to revise his view, lose the blinders of the past, start seeing what really happened and see life for what it is, in order to end the repeated tragedies. Much is lost due to this blindness, but not all.

This is not your average murder mystery. It also holds lessons for living a conscious life, in the present, while seeing the past for what it was, and taking responsibility for your future. It is beautifully written, a feast of word smithing and careful plotting without feeling contrived. It is very real, while feeling bigger, like a fable, a tall tale, or a folk story meant to teach a lesson. Highly recommend.