The Shadows We Hide (2018) is Allen Eskens’s sequel to his debut novel, The Life We Bury, and returns to the life of AP reporter Joe Talbert four years after the events of the first book. As Joe investigates the murder of a man he believes to be his father, the novel blends the conventions of small-town crime fiction with a domestic story about family, recovery, and inheritance, exploring themes such as The Long-Term Impact of an Absent Father, Recovery as a Daily Practice, and The Cost of Doing the Right Thing.

This guide is based on the 2019 paperback edition published by Little, Brown Paperbacks.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of graphic violence, death, death by suicide, physical abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse, self-harm, ableism, mental illness, suicidal ideation, addiction, substance use, and cursing.

Plot Summary

Joe Talbert, a young Associated Press reporter in Minneapolis, is served with a defamation lawsuit from State Senator Todd Dobbins after publishing an article that accused Dobbins of beating his wife. Joe’s editor, Allison Cress, warns that without his anonymous source coming forward, both their jobs are at risk, as Mrs. Dobbins has signed an affidavit denying the abuse. At home, Joe shares the news with his girlfriend Lila Nash, who is studying for the bar exam. Also in his household is his brother Jeremy, who has autism. Joe has cared for Jeremy ever since he managed to wrest guardianship away from their mother Kathy years ago.

The next day, Allison hands Joe a press release describing the suspicious death of one Joseph Talbert in Buckley, a town in rural Caspen County. The ensuing conversation reveals that Joe has never met his father, with whom he shares his name. When he searches his own name online for the first time, he finds the elder Joeseph Talbert’s old mug shot, then discovers the man’s nine criminal convictions, as well as an Austin police report that describes his father punching his pregnant mother. Finally, he finds an obituary for his father’s late wife, Jeannie. When the obituary mentions a teenage daughter, Angel, Joe realizes that he has a half-sister. Later, Lila and Joe discover through recent social media posts that Angel is comatose after attempting suicide.

Lila and Joe argue over Joe’s intentions to drive to Buckley, and Lila reveals that she has received and read a letter from Joe’s estranged mother, Kathy. As an infuriated Joe leaves, Lila forces the letter upon him, telling him that it is his choice whether to read it or not.

As he drives to Buckley, Joe reflects on his turbulent past with his mother, whose addictions to alcohol and meth and relationships with violent men put Jeremy’s well-being at risk and forced Joe to seek guardianship of his brother and cut Kathy out of their lives altogether.

At the Sheriff’s Office, Joe relies upon his AP credentials for access, but when he reveals his name as Joe Talbert, he is questioned by Sheriff J. T. Kimball and Deputies Nathan Calder and Jeb Lewis, who are surprised and suspicious to see a second Talbert relative in the office that day. Joe willingly provides a DNA sample and learns that the dead man, who is known locally as “Toke” Talbert, was murdered. A deputy lets slip the word “inheritance.” As Joe leaves, he speaks to Lila on the phone; she chastises him for leaving in the middle of their conversation and confesses that in addition to reading Kathy’s letter, which arrived seven months ago, she has also called Kathy, violating a no-contact rule that Joe unilaterally set after winning guardianship of Jeremy. Enraged anew, Joe hangs up on Lila without another word.

In town, Joe meets Vicky Pyke, a bartender at the Snipe’s Nest who lives across the road from the Hix farm. She tells him the sheriff suspects Moody Lynch, Angel’s boyfriend, of killing Toke. Outside the bar, Joe is confronted by Toke’s estranged brother Charlie, who disparages Kathy and warns Joe off. Jeb later explains that Toke’s late wife Jeannie inherited a substantial estate from her father Arvin Hix; with Toke now dead, 14-year-old Angel stands to inherit roughly $6 million, and Charlie has filed for her guardianship.

Joe’s research at the library turns up a three-year-old warehouse fire in St. Paul that killed Charlie’s business partner and earned Charlie a million-dollar insurance payout. At the bar that night, an intoxicated man named Harley Redding attacks Joe over a debt he claims that Toke owed him. Vicky later takes Joe for a ride on her motorcycle; they go to the Hix property, and she shows him the horse barn where Jeannie hanged herself and where Toke was beaten to death. (Angel’s boyfriend, Moody Lynch, is now a murder suspect.) Vicky then takes Joe to a river bridge and tells him that Toke ran her mother off the road a decade earlier, although police could not prove that Toke was the culprit.

The next day, Jeb drives Joe to Angel’s bedside in the ICU and reveals that he dated Jeannie in high school. He mentions Jeannie’s typed suicide note, which expressed guilt over her estrangement from her father. Toke had an alibi for the night Jeannie died—video surveillance at his place of employment. Meanwhile, attorney Bob Mullen, who employed Jeannie, briefs Joe on the size of the estate and on Minnesota’s slayer statute. He also urges him to consider competing for Angel’s guardianship in order to block Charlie. Joe refuses.

A call from Lila pulls Joe home: Jeremy has sprained his wrist at his new janitorial job. Joe announces the possible inheritance and proposes taking Jeremy with him to Buckley so Lila can study. Lila objects but relents.

In Buckley, Charlie corners Joe at the motel, taunting him about the old guardianship case. While Joe is out interviewing the father of Angel’s boyfriend, Moody, Charlie convinces Jeremy to walk back to Kathy’s house in Austin; deputies find Jeremy on Highway Five. Joe realizes that Charlie is sabotaging his fitness as a guardian. He finally reads Kathy’s letter, which describes her four years of sobriety and her request to make amends.

Joe drives to Austin with Jeremy. Kathy’s former landlord, Terry Bremer, who is also in recovery, invites Joe to an open AA meeting where Kathy is speaking. She breaks down when she sees her sons. At her apartment, Kathy tells Joe that Toke is probably his father but admits she was with several men at the time. She also tells him that as a teenager Toke walked in on Charlie sexually abusing a young child, and that the Talberts covered it up. Joe leaves Jeremy with her and drives back to Buckley.

Moody Lynch agrees to meet Joe at an isolated barn. Moody describes finding Angel unconscious on the barn floor. Toke then attacked him with a coil of rope, and Moody struck Toke once with a metal gear in self-defense; he called 911 and sat with Angel, then fled when he heard a vehicle approaching. As Moody relates his story, the sheriff’s deputies storm the barn and arrest Moody. Joe is briefly detained and then released; Jeb tells him the DNA results confirm he is Toke Talbert’s son. Bob Mullen reveals that Charlie has filed adoption papers for Angel, which would let Charlie inherit if she dies, and that Charlie is a heavy gambler in serious debt.

At the Snipe’s Nest, Charlie gets Harley to attack Joe, then joins in. Vicky helps the bruised Joe back to his motel room, and when she kisses him, Joe does not stop her. Lila, who has driven down to surprise Joe before her bar exam, arrives at the door and sees Vicky, then leaves in tears. Joe follows her to St. Paul; she tells him to go away.

Joe returns to Austin and asks Kathy whether Toke could really be Angel’s father. Kathy produces a letter in which Toke bragged about getting a vasectomy. Joe takes the letter to Bob Mullen, who does some research and realizes that Jeannie had been having an affair with Jeb Lewis.

Sheriff Kimball confirms blood typing rules out Toke’s paternity and brings Jeb in. Jeb is arrested for moving Angel’s body inside the house before calling backup. Mullen then tells Joe that because Toke was not Angel’s father, Joe alone now stands to inherit Jeannie’s entire estate. Joe insists he will share it.

Reviewing Calder’s squad-car footage at Mullen’s office, Joe spots a figure running across the Hix lawn before Vicky’s “arrival” on her motorcycle, and remembers a detail about Toke’s body she could not have seen from her father’s fence. He drives to the Pyke farm and confronts her wearing a wire. Vicky confesses to killing Toke. Her father Ray discovers that Joe is wearing a wire; the police are now on their way to arrest Vicky. Ray holds them off with a shotgun while Vicky escapes on her motorcycle. Joe wrestles the gun away.

That night Joe wakes in his motel room to the smell of gasoline. The door is chained shut from outside and the sprinkler head sealed with epoxy—the same method used in Charlie’s warehouse fire. Joe escapes the burning building. Outside, he tackles Charlie. Jeb, who is also staying at the motel after his wife threw him out, breaks up the fight and performs a citizen’s arrest to detain Charlie. Calder arrests Charlie for arson. Vicky is later picked up in Yankton, South Dakota.

While in Mullen’s office, Joe finds Jeannie’s suicide note and recognizes spelling errors that match Toke’s old letter to Kathy. Joe summons Kimball and Mullen to Dub’s Repair, explains how Toke faked his alibi, and reveals Toke as Jeannie’s murderer and Angel’s would-be murderer. This revelation disinherits Toke, which means that Joe loses the inheritance entirely. However, he gets to keep Toke’s GTO.

Joe learns that he still has his job at the AP because the senator dropped his lawsuit. Kathy agrees to keep Jeremy a while longer while Joe drives to the Earle Brown Heritage Center to meet Lila after the bar exam. Lila initially walks past him, then agrees to give him another chance. Joe calls her the love of his life, and Lila invites him back home with her.