A Blend of Mystery, Police Procedural, Emotional Drama, and General Fiction

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The storyline in We Begin at the End  by Chris Whitaker sticks to you like the scent of orange blossoms unexpectedly hitting you late at night as you drive past a Florida grove with the windows down. It is powerful and unforgettable. A series of events are invoked by an accident that occurs at night when a young girl goes looking for her older sister thirty years earlier. It blooms from there like droplets of color ink on wet paper, it’s expanding tentacles affecting primarily one family, and many who are part of their extended community. A number of crimes are committed, including murder, which must be solved or an innocent person may get railroaded by the overzealous prosecution. There is quite a bit of strong language as the main character Duchess is a teen with a traumatic life and a lot of rage, fear, and sadness inside. She often seems like a student with ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder.  

By page seven readers are drawn in by an emergency situation as California’s Cape Haven Police Chief Walker (“Walk”) responds to a situation involving “Duchess and Robin, the Radley children. He met them at a half run because he knew all there was to know about them. The boy was five and cried silent tears, the girl had just turned thirteen and did not ever cry.” After assessing the scene, “He told the girl to dial 911. ‘I already have.’ He thumbed open Star’s eyes and saw nothing but white. ‘Will she be alright?’ The boy’s voice. Walk glanced over, hoping for sirens, squinting at fired sky. ‘Could you go look out for them?’ Duchess read him and took Robin outside.” This scene catapults the book into a nonstop series of events that holds readers attention until the last page. 

Through the course of the novel we learn what brought the family to the point where 13 year old Duchess is the primary caretaker for both her 6 year old brother Robin and Star, her mother, who chooses to self medicate her emotional scars with anything within reach. The narrative has elements of high drama and mystery as readers seek answers to a trail of questions that literally continue to the last chapter, as almost nonstop actions and emotional consequences carry the story into Montana, and Wyoming, before returning to California. 

I was very impressed with the originality of the plot. Never in a million years would I have suspected this novel was written by a Brit who lives in the UK. His characters and situations were so authentic. His 2016 debut novel Tall Oaks won an award and had thousands of ratings on Amazon and Goodreads. We Begin at the End won two awards and had over 96,000 ratings on Goodreads. Disney has the screen rights to the book, and intends to develop it for television. I will definitely read more of Chris Whitaker’s books. I urge readers to check out an interview he did on YouTube’s “The Book Report” channel titled “Chris Whitaker: We Begin at the End - Author Interview” because his experiences leading up to when he started writing are unusual, and he is very candid about them. 

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