Far be it from me to join the Hallelujah Chorus that precedes the release of a novel. However, when it comes to WE BEGIN AT THE END, whatever pre-publication praise you may have encountered is grossly understated. Chris Whitaker’s book left me shattered like a fresh egg dropped on a summer-heated sidewalk. The author has quite a backstory that I recommend you research on your own. What is interesting for our purposes is that he lives in Great Britain but sets his novels with dead-on accuracy in the rural United States.

WE BEGIN AT THE END takes place in the fictitious but reality-grounded town of Cape Haven, California, and begins with Vincent King returning there after three decades. His absence was not voluntary, or perhaps not exactly so. He was in his mid-teens when he accidentally but recklessly killed a young girl named Sissy Radley, who was the sister of Star, his girlfriend at the time. Vincent’s presence sends a ripple through the community, from troubled police chief “Walk” Walker to property developer Dickie Darke. Walk and Vincent were best friends in school, but it was the teenaged Walk who found Sissy’s body and whose straightforward testimony sent Vincent to prison. Dickie is a giant of a man with a reputation for being dangerous and deadly, even as he seeks to develop the small community and pull it out of its economic doldrums.

"Reading the last quarter of the novel may take a little longer than normal because you will want to digest the exquisite plot twists that go off like a string of explosives, moving backward through the book and forward past its conclusion."

Star is hardly welcoming Vincent’s return, but it is her children who are ultimately the most affected by it. On the cusp of adolescence, Duchess is hardened in any number of ways by taking on the premature role of parent to both her mother, who has significant substance abuse issues, and her younger brother, Robin. Her flinty exterior is her armor for the soft love she feels for her sibling. Their lives could not get much worse until their situation changes dramatically on a fateful night when an impulsive action by Duchess intersects with Star’s violent death. Vincent is found at the scene of her murder, covered with her blood and all but confessing to the crime.

Duchess and Robin are placed initially with the grandfather in Montana they never knew, which leads to a deceptively tranquil period that is only a precursor for more trouble to come. Lives are upended as truths are revealed, and moral ambiguity is woven into a violent tapestry where issues of guilt and innocence are hazy and answers are best known to only a few.

Chris Whitaker is a marvel. I read one comment that described him as “up-and-coming,” but I believe he is already there. There are enough subtle descriptions, turns-of-phrase and metaphors in WE BEGIN AT THE END to fill three books, and Whitaker is still spitting them out single-action style at the end of it, even as he leaves readers misty-eyed. Reading the last quarter of the novel may take a little longer than normal because you will want to digest the exquisite plot twists that go off like a string of explosives, moving backward through the book and forward past its conclusion. I am totally serious when I ask/beg/tell you not to miss this one. You will never forgive yourself if you do.