We Are All the Same in the Dark by Julia Heaberlin

 

We Are All the Same in the Dark

by Julia Heaberlin

We Are All the Same in the Dark is a complicated book, but makes total sense when reading. So, bear with me.

The story follows Odette Tucker, a Texas police officer who lost her leg when she was a teenager in a car accident and now uses a prosthetic. She has been obsessed with the disappearance case of her teenage boyfriend's sister, Trumanell, since that time. Odette works tirelessly on figuring out what happened to Trumanell and Trumanell's abusive father, Frank Branson. Wyatt (the ex-boyfriend) has been blamed by the town for these disappearances, and labeled a murderer, even though no bodies have ever been found. But there is a rash of evidence pointing to possible homicide. Odette has a bunch of evidence and crime scene items squirreled away in her house, which she inherited from her father, himself a Sheriff in a line of Sheriffs.

Odette was close to her cousin Maggie, whose father was Sheriff Tucker's brother and a pastor. Maggie runs a safe house for girls who need to be hidden for various reasons. When Odette is called out to Wyatt's infamous house she finds he has a young girl there, whom he found on the side of the road surrounded by a ring of dandelions. The girl is missing an eye and he calls her Angel. Odette takes Angel to Maggie's house and continues her investigation, now also looking into the identity of Angel, who refuses to speak. Angel is missing one eye, and Odette takes her to an ocular prosthetist to have a new one created. Then Odette goes missing as well.

The story picks up from Angel's point of view as an eighteen-year-old obsessed with Odette's disappearance. During a break between high school and college Angel returns to the town to try to uncover what happened to Odette and to put all of the ghosts to rest. She suspects several people including Wyatt; Finn, Odette's former husband with whom she was having marital troubles; Odette's partner Randy; and Maggie; as well as the missing Frank Branson and Angel's own father, himself a convicted murderer whom she has been hiding from her whole life.

Heaberlin does a great job of keeping the reader from being confused by all of these different characters and their intertwinings. She leads us on a tension-filled path toward the killer. I have to say that I was actually surprised by who it ended up being. I wasn't totally satisfied by it, to be honest. It seemed farfetched as a culprit, but she does a good job of making it make sense. The writing was very good and full of dark tension. Each character who narrates has their own voice and perspective, each used to perfect effect. I think what the story is saying is that we all have it in us to make the wrong choice, that we are all just souls trying to make it through this thing called life, and that in the dark we are all the same. When we think it can't get any darker, we are all capable of terrible things.

It was a really good, page turning read. I give it 4 stars.