The Life We Bury

Genre: Fiction

This is the story of Joe Talbert, a student at the University of Minnesota. Joe's brother is autistic and his mother is a raging alcoholic, lacking in the most basic parenting skills. For one of his classes, Joe has to write a biographical paper about an individual who is still alive, so he heads to the local senior home and the staff there match him up with, Carl Iverson. Carl is accused of a brutal murder of a 14-year-old girl and agrees to tell Joe his story. Carl and Joe meet periodically and Joe investigates his story. Through Carl's storytelling and researching the crime, Joe learns about Carl and his life before his conviction and eventually discovers the true nature of what happened to the young girl. This is a story of friendship and seeing people for who they really are.

This book is billed as a mystery with many twists and turns, but I found it predictable. I did enjoy some parts of this book, in particular, I liked Joe's character. He's one of those guys who always does the right thing, which makes some of the storyline in this book possible. I think that the idea of the story is great: meeting someone new, finding out about their lives, researching what really happened. But, somehow, some time in the middle of the story it just fell short.