Joan's picks: All the Colours of the Dark and Storm Child

All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker: A truly immersive thriller which begins in 1975 when young girls are going missing from a small town in Missouri. Patch Macauley and Saint Brown are best friends - and lonely teenage misfits whose lives are forever changed when Patch gets caught up in one such abduction. They carry the ramifications of that through almost 30 years in lives which are affected by the trauma and see them both constantly searching for something - and someone. This is big, epic, and brilliant.

Storm Child by Michael Robotham: This is the 4th and final book in the Cyrus Vance series by this author. Cyrus is a psychologist with his own trauma, who in the first book discovered Evie, a young girl who had been hiding in a room after a particularly violent and unpleasant time in captivity. He works with her to try and help her lead a normal life, but in this latest instalment that all comes crashing down when they’re at the beach and see 17 bodies wash up from a refugee boat which capsized at sea, which brings all Evie’s own memories flooding back. Michael Robotham is a terrific writer – these books are great and I was very sorry to be saying goodbye to Cyrus and Evie.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News TALKSEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Joan mackenzie is with us now to talk books. Good morning,
Good morning. You've got one of my favorite Ossie authors
coming up. We'll talk about that in just a moment,
but tell us a little bit about All the Colors
of the Dark by Chris Whittaker.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Yeah. I had not read Chris Whittaker before, but a
number of people whose opinions I respect rave about a
book called We Begin at the End, which came out
I think a couple of years ago, and I'm going
to go back and pick that up because he is
just terrific. So this is a book. It's a kind
of a I don't know what you call it, a
mystery thriller, really just great storytelling which spans thirty years.

(00:46):
So it's big and epic in its scope. And it's
set in a small town in Missouri where there are
a number of abductions of girls taking place. And I'm
a bit over those stories about you know, girls and
women being taken, so I wasn't too sure. But actually
it's so well done because there are two young kids
who are very good friends. His name is Patch McCauley,

(01:07):
and he's called Patch because he was born with one eye,
so he wears a patch over the other eye. And
his friend, her name is Saint Saint Brown, and they
are really good friends. And then one day Patch comes
across a girl who is being attempted to be abducted
by a guy, and he steps in and saves her.
So the guy takes him instead, and he puts him

(01:27):
in this dark basement where he lives for a considerable time,
and the only contact he has with anybody is a
young girl called Grace, who comes in and keeps him
sane by telling him stories about the outside world and
what's going on. And once he gets out, he's determined
to find Grace and he spends the next thirty years
looking for her. It's I know that there's stories of

(01:49):
captivity and dark goings on can sound really depressing, but
this is so beautifully written. I was just blown away
by the quality of the writing, the depth of the storyline,
and the way that it's got this extraordinary arc that
takes in the rest of their lives as they look
for this person.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
And even better, Joan, you've found an author you love
who's written other books you haven't read yet.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
I know, I know. Isn't that good?

Speaker 2 (02:12):
That's the best thing, now, Michael Robotham, I look, if
I want to read a thriller and pick something up
and tear through it. I do love his work.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
I do too, He's just terrific. So he's written lots
of books. But this is the fourth in a series
about a guy called Cyrus Farance who is a forensic psychologist.
And in these four books in this series, Cyrus has
been working with a woman named ev whom he found
in a professional sense when she was a young girl

(02:41):
who was trapped in the cupboard. Here we go again,
another of these stories. Trapped in the cupboard in a
room where some terrible things had been happening, and he
then applies himself to trying to help her to live
a normal life. So through the course of these four
books you get the Ev in Cyrus story and it's
really really well done well. This book, I believe, is

(03:02):
the last in this particular series, and in it, the
beach one day, just as I say, trying to live
a normal life, and suddenly they see bodies washing up
on the beach, and they come from a migrant boat
which is capsized out at sea. But seeing all of
this just brings Evie's nightmarees racing back, and so Cyrus
has to try and help unravel what's going on in

(03:23):
the present with what happened to her in the past,
and how she sees herself linked to this particular disaster
that's just happened off the coast, and ultimately it comes
full circle and takes her back to her family. It's
very well done.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Thank you so much. Join those two books again, All
the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker and Storm
Child by Michael Robotham. And maybe next week we could
have a book without a Woman in a Cupboard.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, I'll do it. Yes.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Thanks for more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin.
Listen live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.