Book Talk: Chris Whitaker, ‘Tall Oaks’

I’ve now read all of Chris Whitaker’s books, published as of 2025. I read his most recent book first and his debut novel last. However, each is a stand-alone novel, so the order in which they are read doesn’t really matter.

“Tall Oaks” (2016, 353 pages in paperback edition) is a small town, located in some unidentified California location where people know each other, although there is a range of residents from working-class people to professionals to the very wealthy. Although I’ve travelled extensively throughout our state, I’ve never encountered any place quite like it. But the author is British, and this may be an idealized vision of what “small town” California must be like.

Nevertheless, the description of the characters in the town is so perfect that the reader feels that she or he knows each one and also feels the pain and sorrow when three-year-old Harry goes missing. That sense of loss punches one right in the stomach beginning in Chapter One when Jim, the local chief of police, listens to a recording of Jessica who recounts the events of the night when her son was taken.