When I began Allen Eskens’s The Life We Bury, I couldn’t turn the
pages fast enough. The premise was
exciting, the characters interesting, and the writing superb. As the events started racing to the climax,
however, everything seemed to slow down, with the main characters making dumb
decisions that would, of course, put their lives in extreme danger.
Joe Talpert hasn’t had the
easiest life co-existing with his mother, who has been abusive to both him and
his autistic brother, Jeremy. Trying to
better himself, he attends college and needs to obtain a subject for his
biographical paper. Thinking outside the
box, he decides to go with Carl Iverson, a convicted murderer who has served
decades in prison, but is now dying of cancer in a nursing home. As he interviews Carl (and his friend), and
unravels his story, he doubts whether Carl ever committed this grisly murder
after all.
As Joe and his eventual
girlfriend, Lila, piece together the puzzle, they begin to do things over and
over again that aren’t exactly smart. This
brings The Life We Bury down, as I
spent more time mentally yelling at the characters instead of being engrossed
in their story. This results in a predictable ending, but getting there was somewhat fun.
MY RATING - 3
