We Are All the Same in the Dark: A Novel Paperback – July 27, 2021

Wow, what a honey-slow, menacing descent into the edges of one town's humanity. This book had a unique flow and a different kind of storytelling.I am utterly and entirely entranced by this story. From the reading experience to the well-crafted mystery to the ominous and never-ending undertone of death, We Are All the Same in the Dark is a mystery/thriller that I will remember.Trumanell Branson disappeared from the Branson home in rural Texas ten years ago. A bloody handprint was found on the doorframe, but no body was ever recovered. Her father, the unpopular and abusive Frank Branson, also disappeared that fateful night. The only Branson who made it out of that night alive was Wyatt, the younger brother whose mind cracked that night and no one could ever prove fully innocent (or guilty).Odette Tucker's past is tied up in that bloody night like a bundle of chicken wire—one that she refuses to forget and yet can never fully solve. Her father was the policeman first on the scene at the Branson home. Odette herself was dating Wyatt Branson. And Odette's alibi for the night of Trumanell's disappearance is bloody—she was in a rollover car crash a few miles from the Branson property.Now a partial leg amputee and haunted by that night for personal and professional reasons, Odette's turned into the Tucker legacy: a cop for the local community. And she's never let go of the Trumanell case.Tangled up with guilt, a personal pressure to solve the unsolvable, and the sense that what's happened in the past might be happening again, Odette's not as surprised as she should be when Wyatt—now an unstable adult still living in the fateful home—discovers a young woman on the side of road with a dangerous past.They call her Angel, and she's unknowingly brought everything crashing down in this tiny town.I really, really can't say more of the plot without ruining some of the magic. Let's stop there.I thought this novel did a few things brilliantly. One: the narrative voice. It's a spoiler to say WHY I am calling out the narrative voice as the best part of this novel, but just trust me on the fact that there are some unique surprises in just who is telling the story (and mystery fans, it's not that unreliable narrator nonsense).Two: the almost hypnotic sense of reality vs. storytelling at play, and the constant sense that we have, as the reader, that there's elements of the story that we should know (but don't) and that there are things being told to us via these characters that they feel is obvious (but we can't really tell what that is). This is hard to describe, but I've seen it as a negative in other people's reviews when, for me, it was a huge positive. I like a level of confusion, especially when it's done as spectacularly as this.Fans of intelligent mystery/thrillers with a dash of the gothic, pick this up.

The story is a bit slow to start, but once it picks up, it's one heck of a page-turner. So incredibly written. It feels like a true story come to life. The characters were all uniquely complex. The representation of characters with prosthesis is portrayed in such a raw and real way. I can tell the author did her research and in general put her heart and soul into this project.On the thriller/suspense aspect, this book does a phenomenal job of keeping you guessing. Personally, I was a bit underwhelmed at "whodunit" but I won't get into why as to avoid spoilers. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't *that* and maybe that's a good thing - precisely what the author intended. For that, I give it four stars. Would recommend this read to anyone who enjoys twisty thriller/mystery novels.

I have lived in Austin, Texas for decades but I plead innocent to previous knowledge of Texas author, Julia Haeberlin. Now that I have read this latest novel of hers, I’ve ordered three more of her books! That is how impressed I am her latest psychological suspense thriller. If you’re hankering for a mystery studded in rural Texas grit with an urban savvy and snaky plot, you’ve come to the right book.There’s desert and desert mythology, the wide and starry sky, Texas wildflowers, small town suspicions, and the unsolved ten year disappearance of a nineteen-year-old girl, Trumanell Branson, and her father. Her brother, Wyatt, is a Boo Radleyesque character who has always been the primary (but unproven) suspect. There’s a lot more in here to compel the reader; I was hooked from page one.Haeberlin captured my interest with her palpable humanity and atmospheric writing. This may be a police procedural, but it is also a character-driven portrait of a community still in pain. Odette, a police officer, is the protagonist with a personal stake in finding Trumanell, as she was her friend, and Wyatt was her first and longterm boyfriend and lover. They grew up together. Odette’s father was the town’s top cop at the time, but he’s dead now for five years.At the moment of Trumanell’s disappearance, Odette was trapped under her car after an accident, losing a leg in the process. Much is focused on the symbolism of her prosthesis and her missing leg becomes a kind of motif of loss, pain, and strength. Odette is married now to a successful Chicago attorney, but made a mistake by returning to Texas with him and falling backward into Wyatt again in a weak moment. Can you love two men? Finn, her husband, and a dead ringer for “Emily Blunt’s husband,” isn’t going to tolerate that.There are several mysteries in this small town. Wyatt finds a young, mute girl with a missing eye outside on the baked ground in the hot sun, barefoot. He names her Angel. A runaway? Abandoned? Odette has a covert group with her cousin, Maggie, daughter of the town preacher. They help these unmoored children by arranging escape from whatever danger they are in. And she relates to Angel’s loss—Odette’s leg, Angel’s eye. It is reminiscent of some of John Irving’s themes (Haeberlin even includes a nod to Irving within the story)--abandoned children, missing body parts, and a touch of a dreamlike quality at times within the narrative.Told in first person from various characters’ perspectives, the story advances with a thrum and well-paced rhythm, misted with levity and pop culture references. I was turning the pages with anticipation and suspense, but at intervals I enjoyed slowing down to enjoy interior moments, the characters’ imaginations and poetic observations. These emotionally tortured characters are relatable and sympathetic, often with a warm and mordant wit. Carefully mapped and executed, it would take a really sullen and cynical reader to not embrace this southern, tragic, and hopeful story. It may leave dust in your mouth but it’s also a breath of fresh air.