Loved this book. Such an interesting story. Several different genres: mystery, coming of age, romantic (in places), drama/thriller.

A good, twisty thriller with lots of interesting geographical mentions. However, it is very long and will be too slow for some.

Just a great flow throughout.

All the colours of the dark is a beautifully written story of love, perseverence and trauma. It slows at times, but whose life story does not? The short chapters help the reader stay on track.

Beautifully written

All The Colors of the Dark, Chris Whitaker-Author; Edoardo Ballerini-Narrator
The time is the early 1970’s. The place is Monta Clare, Missouri. Young girls are disappearing. Two preteens become the unexpected hero and heroine after a heinous crime is committed. How does this alter their lives?
Saint Brown and Patch (Joseph Macauley), are basically friendless until they find each other and establish a relationship that will withstand every challenge. They are both growing up in circumstances that will challenge them. They are both bullied. They are both handicapped in some way. They are also both basically good people, but sometimes, good people do bad things.
Saint is being raised by her grandmother, Norma, who the town believes is a lesbian. She denies this. She simply has short hair. She is a church-goer and raises Saint to be faithful, though Saint does not faithfully attend church with her. Norma is a bus driver. Saint, with bottle thick eyeglasses is mocked by her peers, many of whom are better off financially. She raises bees, loves photography, plays the piano expertly, and follows the rules.
Then there is Patch. He lives by his wits. His mom, Ivy, is often drunk. When she isn’t, she works as a cleaner. When his mother cannot work, he does her jobs for her. He provides for the family and often steals, so he is known as a thief. He has only one eye, so he wears an eye patch and dresses like a pirate. His mom makes him a variety of eyepatches to wear, even one with a skull and crossbones like a real pirate. He is bullied and mocked by cruel classmates because of his disability and his poverty.
One day, walking to school, Patch does not meet up with Saint. On his way, he is bullied by a group of boys. When he recovers himself and continues to school, he hears a scream. He sees that Misty Meyer, his heart throb, is being attacked by a huge man. He saves her life, but while she is rescued, he disappears. The evidence left behind seems to indicate that he is wounded and perhaps dead. Saint refuses to believe that Patch is not coming back, and she vows that she will not rest until she finds him. She believes he is alive, regardless of how much time has passed. After almost a year, after disobeying every rule and defying Chief Nix, she discovers the clues that eventually lead to his whereabouts. Chief Nix had refused to listen to her until it was almost too late. Later he thanks her.
When Patch is rescued, he is gravely injured. He has also changed. While in captivity for almost a year, he is convinced that he was cared for by a young girl named Grace, and he demands that they find her and rescue her, as well. He tells them that she led him in prayer, taught him how to survive, educated him about the culture and the world around him, kept him safe by instructing him how to behave so his captor would not murder him as he had murdered so many others. She insisted that it was her prayerfulness and obedience that had kept her alive while all the others were dead. Was she real or a figment of his imagination that he created in order to survive his ordeal as everyone thought? He became obsessed with reuniting with Grace, Eventually, he quit school. Dr. Martin Tooms tried to help him, but eventually suspicion was even cast upon him.
Sammy, known as the town drunk, owned an art gallery. He took Patch under his wing, although he did it gruffly. He recognized Patch had artistic talent when he saw his sketches of Grace and the places that he believed that she had described to him. Sammy provided him with supplies and a place to paint saying he was keeping a tab. Patch painted pictures of places and girls that were missing. He hoped to find Grace and to help the families of the other missing girls. He was obsessed.
Meanwhile, Misty Meyer who had been suffering from guilt because she was rescued and Patch was not, became more and more attracted to him when he returned. Although he had always admired her, he had never been on her radar before. After all, they were from two different worlds. She was rich. He was poor, had quit school, and had a bad reputation. She was a good student, had a rich boyfriend who coincidentally was Chuck, one of the boys who regularly taunted Patch. In spite of their differences, as the years passed, they grew closer and became a couple, although the friendship with Saint continued too. When Misty was accepted by Harvard and Saint was accepted by Dartmouth.
Misty’s father was against the relationship between Patch and his daughter. When she went off to Harvard the relationship ended. She did not finish school. Instead, she returned home with a daughter, Charlotte. Who was the father? Saint did not go to Dartmouth; she became a police officer hoping to save young girls from further harm. Although her effort had helped to rescue Patch, the crime had never been solved and she was still searching for the kidnapper, hoping to bring him to justice. Chief Nix and her mother had tried to discourage her. They knew that Patch had changed. They wanted her to move on. Soon, she did. She married Jimmy, who was studying to be a veterinarian. This marriage had problems.
As time passed, the identity of the kidnapper was revealed and both Saint and Patch continued their search for him, Eli Aaron, the school photographer, and they continued to search for Grace. The effort consumed them and altered the trajectory of their lives, but never their friendship. That remained a constant. More than 20 years pass before any kind of justice is granted, not only to the guilty, but to the falsely accused.
This book tackled so many issues, obsession, physical and mental illness, death, loss, grief, loyalty, domestic abuse, homosexuality, poverty, bullying, secrets, abortion, incest, the right to life, the justice system, capital punishment, love, good and evil, right and wrong, and more, yet it handled all of these issues comfortably and coherently. All of the many characters are also well defined. As the book explored the consequences of misinterpretation, of rushing to judgment, of breaking the rules and also of following the rule book without fail, of religious fervor, and the flaws we are all heir to. In the end, the reader realizes that although good people sometimes do bad things, there is always hope for redemption, forgiveness and justice.
As the story twists and turns, the reader will be kept guessing. I could picture the story as it played out, almost as if I was watching it on a stage. The author connected with the theater of my mind, because I often felt as if I was watching a movie, scene by scene.