All the Colors of the Dark

At just over 600 pages and 261 chapters, this is for readers who enjoy a big book that blends genres: literary thriller plus crime fiction plus love story plus coming-of-age tale.

The book spans a quarter of a century. It opens in 1975 in Monta Clare in the Ozark mountains of Missouri. Saint Brown and Joseph Macauley are young teenagers. Saint is a talented pianist and aspiring beekeeper living with her grandmother; Joseph (nicknamed Patch because of the patch he wears over his missing eye) is bullied and lonely and has become a petty thief. The two become inseparable best friends. One day, after coming to the aid of a young girl, Patch goes missing. After a time, people fear he is dead, but Saint never gives up searching for him. When show more Patch does return, he is irrevocably changed. Saint wants to pick up their friendship, but Patch is fixated on Grace, a girl who shared his trauma and helped him survive. But is she even real? As years pass, Patch does not give up searching for Grace, and Saint does not give up trying to help her friend.

The plot is complex with the stories of various characters added, all of which come together in the end. There are certainly unexpected twists and turns, though looking back, there are subtle clues. Why, for instance, does Saint take note of the book a mother buys her son? Some coincidences irked me, especially in the later chapters. And the reader has to suspend some disbelief: a totally untrained artist dazzles the art world so much that his paintings sell for phenomenal prices and a bank robber escapes so easily so many times.

The book also offers detailed character studies. Saint and Patch are layered; both have strong principles as well as vulnerabilities and flaws. They feel like real people whom I will remember like friends I have made over time. Despite the dark tone, there are moments of levity, many of them provided by Sammy.

I loved the writing style. The author excels at interesting turns of phrase and imagery: “the sun dipped and cannoned color across the ocean” and “a great oak held bronze sky in its trusses” and “Right then mammatus clouds sagged like pockets of rainfall, the framing sky detonated like it could no longer hold blue” and “The window was tall and narrow like a letterbox flipped on its side” and “The road sliced [the everglades] without mercy, a blight on natural wonder.”

Several themes are developed: childhood trauma inevitably shapes adult lives, influencing decisions, choices and relationships; kindness and loyalty will be rewarded; and “sometimes things survive despite the harshest of odds” and “sometimes, against the longest of odds, hope wins out.”

In many ways, this is an unconventional book which may not appeal to everyone. Though not perfect, it provided me with a reading experience that will stay with me for some time.

Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) or substack (https://doreenyakabuski.substack.com/) for over 1,100 of my book reviews. show less

4.5 Loved Whitaker’s formula of mystery embedded in a story of characters the reader cares about and wants to see develop. 13-year Joseph Macaulay is known to his cruel classmates as Patch because he has only one eye and keeps the other covered. He has embraced the pirate association, dressing the part, carrying a small dagger, and often stealing from people in the smallish Ozark town of Monta Clare, only because he and his single mother are so poor. His best friend Saint is another social misfit, living with her Grandma and immersing herself in music, obscure information, and beekeeping. On an ordinary morning as Patch avoids school on the outskirts of town, he interrupts the attempted kidnapping of one of his classmates, the town show more golden girl, Misty Meyers, and while saving her becomes the snatched victim instead. This changes the trajectory of almost everyone in the town - Patch’s mother Ivy, whose adulting and coping skills were already fragile, Saint whose dogged determination is channeled toward finding her friend, Chief Nix the good-hearted chief of police, who is in over his head, Misty whose guilt and gratitude tie her to Patch in improbable ways - and so everyone tries to move forward with hope and purpose. The story starts in 1975 and ends in 2001, showing the ripple effects of this key event. It explores ideas like the healing power of art, letter of the law vs spirit of the law, love in all its many facets, the predatory risk young girls face in our society, the way class impacts relationships, and the power of friendship. Short chapters keep the action and the narrative (and the reader) moving through the almost 600 pages willingly and compulsively. A great combo of thought-provoking and compelling. Short of true five stars only because some of the info is cryptic and subtle, leaving me slightly confused on occasion, but all comes together by the end. show less

From the flat roof of the kitchen Patch looked out through serried pin oaks and white pine to the loom of St. Francois Mountains that pressed the small town of Monta Clare into its shade no matter the season. At thirteen he believed entirely that there was gold beyond the Ozark Plateau. That there was a brighter world just waiting for him.

Though later that morning when he lay dying in the woodland, he'd take that morning still and purse it till the colors ran because he knew it could not have been so beautiful. That nothing was ever so beautiful in his life.

So begins this literary crime novel about a boy victimized by a serial killer and how the entire town is affected. His best friend, Saint, cannot accept that he is dead. She hounds show more the town police chief, who had also tried to protect the boy. His mother spirals further down her already drunken path, while the girl Patch was trying to protect is told to move on with her scripted life. From Saint's grandmother to the town's doctor, everyone is impacted and no one will be the same.

I never read crime novels, especially ones with serial killers, so when my book club chose this novel, I debated whether to skip this month. But I bit the bullet, so to speak, and began reading. The first 150 pages had some tough parts, but because the book is primarily about how the missing affect those left behind, it was not gruesome in the way I expected. Instead it's a book about trying to find a way through trauma, how to continue living when you lose someone you love, about holding on and letting go. I was completely taken with the characters and flew through the second half. Whitaker knows how to write, and how to construct a compelling story. So it ended up checking many boxes for me: people, prose, plot. I'm looking forward to discussing this with my book club. show less

I ordered a copy of All the Colors of the Dark from the library and was quite surprised when I picked it up. I was expecting a regular length mystery book of about 300 pages not the 600 plus pages that I received. Looking back now, I wish it had been double that length as this was a book that I never wanted to end. I believe that I may have just finished my best book of the year.

Beautifully written, this book took me on an emotional journey and was both uplifting and heartbreaking in equal measure. The feelings this book implanted were absorbing, moving and unforgettable. Hard to define, the book is a coming-of-age, mystery, suspense and literary novel. Opening in 1975 in a small town in Missouri we meet one-eyed Patch and Saint, two show more kids who are outcasts but have found each other and are best friends. Unfortunately girls are going missing and Patch stumbles on the girl who is his major crush being grabbed. He interrupts and saves Misty, but he is stabbed and taken. Everyone thinks he is dead, everyone except his friend Saint. She continues to search for him. As the years go by Saint grows up to become a police officer and then joins the FBI. Patch has a much more complicated story, as he spends his life in searching for the girl that shared his dark prison.

A beautiful book with a grim theme, we follow along with Patch on his quest. In All the Colors of the Dark the author gives us an in-depth look at his characters, their motivations and why they take the actions that they do. He has created a compelling, complex story that captivated me and will long be remembered. show less

The first problem here is that I thought this was going to be a thriller, and it is not. That's on me. But THEN. The sentence-level writing annoyed the PANTS off me (attempts to be poetic (I think?) in using words not *just* right), and I felt like the entire thing was reaching too hard to be A Good Book that is About Being Human. It wasn't awful, but I feel like if the author had paid just a little more attention to *storytelling* rather than *writing*, it might have been really, really amazing.

I finished this book a month ago, and I'm still thinking about it. It just resonated so well with me. The characters were extremely well-developed. Sure, none of them always made good decisions and many made bad decisions...a lot. But, they were consistent with their background and psyche. The writing was absolutely gorgeous! You can't read this too quickly, because one sentence or phrase can say so much. And yet, I've never read a 600 page book in just a 3 days. (I didn't want to do anything else.) There were short chapters, paragraphs, or sentences that I just kept staring at or re-reading over and over. They packed such a punch and frequently brought tears to my eyes. The last part of the book brought out a whole slurry of emotions. show more I was happy, sad, angry...you name it. I sat in bed and cried for a good hour afterwards - my husband had never seen anything like it and was quite confused. Huge kudos to this author for creating such powerful novel! show less

(26) Whoa. What tour de force. I read Whitaker's other mystery, 'We Begin at the End,' that got some hype, and had mixed feelings but could see the potential talent. And here the potential is realized. A 13-year-old boy, Joseph McCauley known as Patch, risks his life and disrupts a predator who was about to kidnap the town beauty who he has a crush on. Instead, he is assaulted and disappeared while Misty Myers runs free. And so it begins.

I simply don't want to spoil so won't say much about the plot after that. His best friend Saint, an odd-ish young girl being raised by her grandmother, never gives up looking for Patch. Yearning for him and their closeness becomes the defining element of her life. This haunting yearning and never giving show more up despite the consequences is in fact what defines all the characters lives. And Oh, the characters. . . They are so well drawn and come alive in your minds eye. Sammy, Norma, Nix, even Tooms.

There are so many twists and turns and parts of this book - the further in to the book you go, the shorter the chapters become as more and more is revealed. I did figure out one of the big twists towards the end. But there were others I did not see coming. The book is both gripping, and well-written. Definitely haunting. Grace's words reverberate through a lifetime - I can hear the boy Patch's scratchy voice on Saint's answering machine. The missing girls portraits, the blood on the mattress, the dug up dog collar.

This is a long book with lots of detail. At times, it was fantastical and seemed more fairy-tale like - such as building a house from memory by hand, the robbing banks and giving money to charity, the paintings becoming wildly valuable. Some parts were more gritty and realistic but then would veer into almost magical realism.

This was unputdownable for me and a very engulfing read. I could read it for hours and didn't want it to end. All of things I like in a novel - mystery, crime, excellent characterization, strong sense of place, dramatic tension. Read this! It will be right up there in one of the best books of the year, I guarantee. show less