Over Tumbled Graves: A Novel - Softcover

Walter, Jess

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061712833 ISBN 13: 9780061712838

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2009

Synopsis

During a routine drug bust, on a narrow bridge over white-water falls in the center of town, Spokane detective Caroline Mabry finds herself face-to-face with a brutal murderer. Within hours, the body of a young prostitute is found on the riverbank nearby. What follows confronts our fascination with pathology and murder and stares it down, as Caroline and her cynical partner, Alan Dupree—thrown headlong into the search for a serial murderer who communicates by killing women—uncover some hard truths about their profession . . . and each other.

Rich with the darkly muted colors of the Pacific Northwest skies, Over Tumbled Graves established Jess Walter as a novelist of extraordinary emotional depth and dimension.

About this title

Review:

What is it about the Pacific Northwest that seems to attract mass murderers who prey on the most vulnerable of society's downtrodden? Had Spokane journalist Jess Walter made this tantalizing question the centerpiece of his debut thriller, he might have come up with something other than a relatively derivative retelling of an all-too-familiar plot. Instead, he takes the idea as well as the setting for his novel right from the 2000 headlines that trumpeted the arrest of serial killer Robert Yates for the murders of several young prostitutes in eastern Washington state.

Detective Caroline Mabry, still suffering the after-effects of a domestic violence incident that turned deadly, is assigned to investigate a killing spree that begins with the discovery of the mutilated body of first one and then several other prostitutes who were last seen on the stroll in a part of town apparently due for wholesale development. Partnered with her old flame Alan Dupree, a married detective whose sarcastic humor and iconoclastic ways are barely tolerated in the department, Caroline's investigation focuses on one Lenny Ryan, already sought in the seemingly unrelated murder of a young drug dealer. The two headline-grabbing FBI profilers brought into the case to help the beleaguered local police in their search for Ryan provide Walter with a subplot that slows down the narrative and adds little except a few cheap shots to the action. Mabry and Dupree will seem hauntingly familiar to readers of Ridley Pearson's popular cop thrillers starring Lou Boldt and Daphne Matthews. Yet Walter is a solid writer with a good command of his craft, and if serial killers are your style, Over Tumbled Graves won't disappoint. --Jane Adams

About the Author:

Jess Walter is the author of six novels, including the bestsellers Beautiful Ruins and The Financial Lives of the Poets, the National Book Award finalist The Zero, and Citizen Vince, the winner of the Edgar Award for best novel. His short fiction has appeared in Harper's, McSweeney's, and Playboy, as well as The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He lives in his hometown of Spokane, Washington.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0061712833
• ISBN 13: 9780061712838
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 367