Searing examination of the scars of history in small-town America - intense & heartfelt.
Chris Whitaker’s bruising examination of the scars of history in small-town America and the quest for redemption starts out in Cape Haven, California where the tragic consequences of one night thirty years earlier have continued to reverberate through the generations. Vincent King is the man who set it all in motion when he took the life of seven-year-old Sissy Radley, but having served his time he is returning to his hometown that developers eye with interest. His ex-girlfriend and sister of his victim, Star Radley, still lives in Cape Haven and is a shambolic mess as she drinks her way to oblivion and does a poor job of providing for her two children, thirteen-year-old Duchess and five-year-old Robin. Responsibilities and caring duties for both her brother and mother fall on the shoulders of Duchess, hardened by a lifetime of knocks and getting a raw deal, and she alone knows what Vincent King’s release means to her mother and Cape Haven.
Chief of Police Walker (Walk) was King’s closest friend in childhood and his loyalty and belief in the man’s innate goodness has never wavered and despite his deteriorating ability to do his job as illness ravages him, he watches out for Star and her kids. The towering and impassive figure of developer and club owner, Dickie Darke, circles too closely to Star and her kids for Walk’s liking and Darke’s menacing reputation precedes him. Determined to buy the property that stands in the way of making a million from his plans to develop Cape Haven that belongs to Vincent King, Walk suspects it isn’t only the man’s girly club that is rotten to the core. In trying to protect her troubled mother, Duchess’s actions inadvertently set of a series of ripple effects that see the Radley children sent to Copper Falls, Montana and an estranged grandfather who himself never recovered from the devastating loss of his youngest daughter in a cape Haven thirty years earlier.
Aggressively hostile to the point of savage, foul-mouthed and all sharp edges, Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen year old who has seen too much and knows too much for a child of such tender years. Duchess never gives an inch and her first concern is always for her vulnerable five-year-old brother, Robin. Never dropping her guard, quick to capitalise on weakness and already damaged by the fallout of events before her birth, Duchess is portrayed with such empathy. Difficult to like at the outset, impossible not to adore by the end and an awe-inspiring ‘Outlaw’ fit for the twenty-first century at the gut-wrenching denouement.
Cape Haven is full of flawed characters and in Chief of Police Walk they find a lawman of compassion and integrity. It is only in hindsight that We Begin at the End can be seen as a novel dominated by unspoken and selfless actions and recognised as a beautiful testimony to the scarifies we make and and the eternal quest for redemption that it represents. Whilst the character of Duchess Day Radley may take the plaudits, the empathy, understanding and absence of judgment of the devoted character of Walk deserves an honorary mention.
We Begin at the End poses the question of how we can ever expect to overcome the traumas of the past when they are woven so inextricably with the present and in Whitaker’s intense examination of Cape Haven and the repercussions of one tragic event he has delivered a powerful story of the things we do for those we love. Whilst it took me over a quarter of the book to become hooked and feel like I was making headway with the story, it will go down as one of the most poignant, cathartic and subtle analyses of crime I have read in recent years.
Chief of Police Walker (Walk) was King’s closest friend in childhood and his loyalty and belief in the man’s innate goodness has never wavered and despite his deteriorating ability to do his job as illness ravages him, he watches out for Star and her kids. The towering and impassive figure of developer and club owner, Dickie Darke, circles too closely to Star and her kids for Walk’s liking and Darke’s menacing reputation precedes him. Determined to buy the property that stands in the way of making a million from his plans to develop Cape Haven that belongs to Vincent King, Walk suspects it isn’t only the man’s girly club that is rotten to the core. In trying to protect her troubled mother, Duchess’s actions inadvertently set of a series of ripple effects that see the Radley children sent to Copper Falls, Montana and an estranged grandfather who himself never recovered from the devastating loss of his youngest daughter in a cape Haven thirty years earlier.
Aggressively hostile to the point of savage, foul-mouthed and all sharp edges, Duchess Day Radley is a thirteen year old who has seen too much and knows too much for a child of such tender years. Duchess never gives an inch and her first concern is always for her vulnerable five-year-old brother, Robin. Never dropping her guard, quick to capitalise on weakness and already damaged by the fallout of events before her birth, Duchess is portrayed with such empathy. Difficult to like at the outset, impossible not to adore by the end and an awe-inspiring ‘Outlaw’ fit for the twenty-first century at the gut-wrenching denouement.
Cape Haven is full of flawed characters and in Chief of Police Walk they find a lawman of compassion and integrity. It is only in hindsight that We Begin at the End can be seen as a novel dominated by unspoken and selfless actions and recognised as a beautiful testimony to the scarifies we make and and the eternal quest for redemption that it represents. Whilst the character of Duchess Day Radley may take the plaudits, the empathy, understanding and absence of judgment of the devoted character of Walk deserves an honorary mention.
We Begin at the End poses the question of how we can ever expect to overcome the traumas of the past when they are woven so inextricably with the present and in Whitaker’s intense examination of Cape Haven and the repercussions of one tragic event he has delivered a powerful story of the things we do for those we love. Whilst it took me over a quarter of the book to become hooked and feel like I was making headway with the story, it will go down as one of the most poignant, cathartic and subtle analyses of crime I have read in recent years.