We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker (Zaffre, 2020)
Fiction
Of course, you need to be back in lovely Blairgowrie for the final recommendation this month: Chris Whitaker’s We Begin At The End - winner of the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year. Chris will be appearing at BOOKMARK’s next Meet The Author Event and Launch of the 2022 October Festival on Saturday 30th July. The story is set in small-town California and Montana, and is told by the unforgettable narrator, Duchess: a troubled 13-year-old, who is trying to protect her younger brother and deal with a drink and drug-addled mother who has never recovered from the death of her own sister decades earlier. When the man responsible for that death is released from jail and returns to their town, events take a further turn for the worse.