All The Colors Of The Dark by Chris Whitaker

 

Saint lives with her grandmother, friendless because she's so smart and loves things like beekeeping instead of regular kid stuff.  Patch lives with a junkie mother, his nickname the result of only having one eye from birth.  The two find each other and start a friendship that deepens quickly.  

When they are thirteen, a man tries to kidnap the school beauty.  Patch intervenes and he is instead taken away.  He comes to in a dark underground room where he is imprisoned for almost a year.  The only thing that keeps him going is the company of another captive, Grace.  He is found when Saint, who never gives up on him, discovers where he is hidden and manages to free him.  Grace, however, doesn't make it out.

That sets in motion the paths of each life.  Saint starts a law enforcement career, first locally then with the FBI.  Patch spends his life looking for Grace and the rest of the girls the man who took him took and killed.  Along the way, he becomes an artist and paints pictures of the girls he gives to the parents who will never see their daughters again.  Over the years, the two friends continue to be thrown together at times and their friendship never fades.  Each is the most important person in the other's world.

This book was released to great fanfare.  It lives up to the expectations set by all the buzz.  Whitaker explores the nature of love and friendship and whether obsession is ever valid or if it ruins lives.  The two main characters are such that the reader will fall in love with both of them and cheer them on as they live their lives.  This book is recommended for readers of thrillers.