Tall Oaks: Winner of the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger Award

It was really difficult to get thru this book without laughing until my stomach hurt. Some of these characters were absolutely brilliant. At the same time. I felt so devastated at what can happen when things aren't right and people can't see what's happening in front of their nose. It broke my heart to see how people who are different can be treated, and the kind of arrogant narsissistic men I call pigs can cause a human being to self destruct. I actually cried at the end even though I kinda figured it out earlier, but the details broke my heart. Well written and believable. Couldn't put it down. Pure, funny, and oh so very sad.

Sometimes when a blurb says "Everyone is a suspect" I tend to think that's highly unlikely and there often ends up being only about two suspects. In the case of Tall Oaks, the wonderful debut novel by Chris Whitaker, just about everyone actually is a suspect and that's just how I like my mysteries! Time to put on my biggest detective hat and figure out what happened to three-year-old Harry...and what's Jared..and Henrietta.. and Jerry (just to name a few) hiding? See...secrets.

The book is set in a small California town where everyone knows everyone and a crime like the kidnapping of a small child had previously been unheard of. Needless to say, the close knit town is rocked when three year old Harry is taken from his bed one night. His mother, Jessica, a single mom whose no good husband Michael had left her and Harry, is home at the time and what she sees on the baby monitor when Harry goes missing has left her a terrified, unstable basket case. Luckily, she has the support of Jim who's not only the dogged police detective working tirelessly to find Harry, he's also a friend from high school who, perhaps, would like to be more than friends.

The plot weaves between the downward spiral of Jessica, her hunt for Harry, and the happenings between many others in the small town. We meet Manny, a high schooler who, along with his friend Abe, wants to be the "gangsters" in town and plays the part accordingly with his language ,outfits and "shakedowns" of places like Pizza Hut. Too funny! I have to say, Manny steals the show in this book. He's not your typical teenager by any means, I mean his language is atrocious (i.e. liberal use of the F word) and his goals include being a gangster, but Manny makes no excuses for himself, he loves his mom and his little sister and he'd do anything for them. And then he meets Furat and young love is in store for Manny:)

I'd love to go on and on about all the wonderful unique characters in this book but in the interests of keeping this review manageable I'll give you a condensed lowdown. There's Jerry who's got a soul crushing mother and life, Henrietta, who's married to Roger and let's just say there's something quite off about that marriage, Jared, the newcomer to town who's definitely running from something...and that's just a few of the characters you'll get to know and question! I have to mention another of my very favorite characters...French John. He's a baker in town and friends with Manny's mom and I thought his character was extremely witty and funny. See, that's the thing about this book. You would think that an author writing a mystery novel about a missing child couldn't also write characters who were quirky, funny, and endearing and I admit to being skeptical about it myself but Chris Whitaker has done just that and done it in a way that's true to the story. This book really is a 'whodunit' that's at times sad, funny, and endearing.

As you can see, I really enjoyed this story. If there's one critique I have it's that within the chapters , perspectives change abruptly from one person to another with only a small space break and at first I had a hard time keeping the differing perspectives straight as there's many characters and storylines introduced but after the first several chapters when we've met all the characters and gotten a feel for their storylines, I followed everything perfectly fine and didn't notice the quick shifts anymore. As far as what happened to Harry, I thought I had put all my detective skills to use on this one and had it all figured out but it turns out I'm not as good as I thought I was at being a detective.

At first I wasn’t sure about the novel, but after a few pages, I found myself totally drawn in. I only put it down long enough to get a good night’s sleep, knowing I’d finish it the next day. I have never read anything so dark yet filled with welcome splotches of humor. And I haven’t read a book with such a surprisingly satisfying ending, all the quirky, mysterious subplots finally tied into neat bows. If it is ever made into a movie, I vote David Lynch to direct it.

Tall Oaks is a compelling portrait of small town America. The spine of the story is a police investigation into the disappearance of a little boy, with plenty of false leads and likely suspects. The resolution of the abduction plot is tantalisingly kept till the very end (and came as a jaw dropping surprise, at least to this reader). However, the excitement of the quest for a killer is the icing on the cake. Tall Oaks is an absorbing read because of the characters.

Much of the narrative is conveyed through snappy dialogue that conjures up a cast of diverse and believable personalities. Tall Oaks is a small town that is filled with interesting people. The people are interesting because they are drawn whole. Some of the portraits are heartbreaking. The relationship between an overweight bachelor and his unstable mother is described with a sort of relentless tenderness, so that the reader sympathizes with characters who may reasonably be viewed as prime suspects.

The writing is hard-boiled but there are moments when accidental beauty is lyrically evoked, as in: “. . . moonlight colored the streets blue and the sounds of the town died in the humid night.”

Brilliantly-observed, exciting and sometimes very, very funny, Tall Oaks brings a quirky town to life while describing how it comes to terms with death.

I read this book on my Kindle and the way it was set up was confusing at first. In every chapter, there were abrupt changes in setting/characters, without an indented paragraph or extra spacing to indicate that the author was taking us somewhere else. After a few chapters, as I became more familiar with the characters, I was able to adjust to the sudden breaks. Otherwise, I'd rate this book a 5 because I easily became engrossed in the plot and characters. It kept me guessing and I appreciated that all the conflict were resolved before the conclusion.

This was an odd book. It was simultaneously about everything, about nothing, and about an unsolved abduction of a three year old boy. For me, it was like watching an Episode of Seinfeld, crossed with an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, crossed with an episode of Twin Peaks.

The book starts out building the backstory about Jess, the mother to Harry, the abducted three year old boy, and then goes promptly off the rails and introduces us to everyone in the peanut gallery: the other residents of Tall Oaks. And boy, are there a bunch of them.

We learn about the residents in metered bits and pieces. It's kinda like ... if you're knitting ... something (I don't knit but I know plenty of folk who do), and working with ten skeins of (expensive!) yarn. You, the knitter, have the pattern and you know the end result you wish to achieve. However us, the non-knitters, haven't the foggiest idea how you will be incorporating these many skeins into your end product. In fact, I daresay, we have no idea what your end product may be: is it a scarf? An afghan? A quilt? Neither? All of the above?

Consider all these ponderous "skeins" to be the many residents of Tall Oaks. Do all of them have to do with the plot? No. Is there a plot? Well, this novel certainly isn't plot driven. So if there is a plot, I missed it.

Continuing the knitting analogy (it's late and I blame cheap box wine), the skeins I liked best had nothing to do with child abduction. Nothing! Wait! Manny's little sister, Thalia, used to play with Harry, so I guess tangentially there was some kind of relationship?

I loved Manny. His dad left his mother, Elena, and his sister, Thalia, to fend on their own. Manny is a high school senior, but some of his actions (dressing in three piece suits, wearing a fedora, and p!ans to "shake down" the town businesses with his best friend Abel) seem rather juvenile.

Before Manny decided he'd go full-on gangster, he went through a phase where he idolized Sylvester Stallone in Rocky II. As his dad was never there for him, all he really wants is the feeling he gets when he sees Adrian chant: "Win, Rocky, win!" He wants someone to support him and show him unconditional love; support for him just being Manny.

Spoiler: he does get his "winning" moment and it's very sweet - but it has NOTHING to do with the plot, if there every was one.

Good character development if you're a David Lynch fan, otherwise, not so much.

Writing is very good and the author does paint pictures with his words, so there's that. Also, there are unexpected moments of witty dialogue.