A long time ago I spent time in Spokane, Washington, the setting for this marvelously written literary mystery. The small city itself was an interesting place of contrasts, surrounded by a beautiful and dramatic landscape. This was in the 1970's, so I imagine it has changed a great deal. However, when I was there it was in the process of trying to fit two very different life philosophies together - blue-collar, hard-working hard-drinking country/cowboy-music unstyled people with calloused hands who hoped the logging/trucking/mining/farming jobs would last and they could stay near their grandparents, and stylish long-haired educated pot-smoking rock 'n roll people who were all hoping to move to Seattle, Washington or Portland, Oregon some day because they felt Spokane was destroying them with boredom and stultifying old-fashioned thinking. Old-fashioned vs. new methodologies are bedeviling Sergeant Alan Dupree, in his work as Spokane police detective in 2001, the current time of the novel. He has been partnered with a younger man, Chris Spivey, who has been accepted to Major Crimes, instead of his personal choice, Caroline Mabry, Special Investigations, who he had trained six years ago. Spivey is full of new methods and policing techniques. Dupree tries to lose him when he can. A lot of things are bothering him, not only Spivey and the new investigation standards. He secretly is in love with Caroline, who reluctantly refused a relationship with him, and his wife is unhappy in their marriage, apparently resenting his lack of attention. Following regulations and filling out paperwork has become more than irritating - he's getting angry and frustrated.Caroline Mabry has never recovered from a domestic disturbance call of 6 years ago which involved a drunk husband beating his wife into pulp. When the man lunged towards her, she shot him. She isn't sure it was a good shoot since her memory and the subsequent investigation, to her, seem to barely approve of the circumstances for a good shoot - the armed attacker who threatens an officer's life in a frontal assault should be 20 feet away or less. She thinks she fired compulsively without thought, surprised and shocked, reacting in sudden fear. In her memory the husband was farther away than 20 feet when she started thinking again. Despite being cleared by the shooting review, she has had increasing corrosive doubts about her judgement in every police action, uncertain if she is making the correct moves or following correct procedure. Adding to her discomfort is her present assignment with the drug detectives. Her usual work was in property crimes, and she does not like the sneaky deception and pretense behind every drug dealer takedown, particularly the wearing of disguises.Even though Dupree and Mabry only occasionally work together these days, and each are unaware of the other's deep depression, they are concerned by each other's visible show of internal anxieties. Both are seriously considering quitting, both feeling undermined and overwhelmed by the stresses of the job.Fortunately, gentle reader, they decide to continue detecting for 500 pages to catch a serial killer. It's a good thing they stay on the job because no one else in the Spokane police department has a clue, especially two feuding profilers who invite themselves to the investigation when the department finally accepts that the horribly murdered rotting bodies of teen prostitutes without fingernails are victims of the same killer. Calm yourself.Depression and doubts dogging their every step, Dupree and Mabry follow two separate threads amongst the meek and powerful, their bosses and lowlifes, while the bodies pile up. If you feel a little embarrassed by your own quickened breathing because of how wonderful this mystery full of tawdry depravity sounds, take heart! It's also a literary novel which has sentences with which any reader can impress their more high-brow friends in the retelling. The two detectives, along with the bad guy (sorry, I'm not going to reveal who - I'll only hint things are not entirely as you may think for 450 pages) are examined with believable depths and backstory which make this a three-dimensional look at people I think the author, Jess Walter, really knew before fictionalizing. This is good, and I recommend it for those readers who like a literary depth in their dark reading. There is a lot of character angst and not a lot of mayhem, which makes this slower paced, but there is still plenty of distress and deadly threats. However, some characters are cartoons (revenge or teasing, getting back at a real life acquaintance?), and there is a character who didn't feel right to me. The jokey ironies never felt misplaced, though. The violence is not explicit, but I never doubted the story or the action. However, I DO think perhaps these detectives should sit down with a psychologist of their choosing - but not until the end of the book...
Finding a new author (new in the sense of my never having been exposed to him before) that I like is one of the great pleasures in life … and I definitely will be looking for novels by Jess Walter in the future. It turns out that this was Walters’ first published novel (2001), and this copy was a 2000 advanced reader’s edition (Not For Sale). This particular copy appeared on the book-swap shelf at the VA Hospital last week. Frankly, I picked it up largely because it was set in large print (although, interestingly, it does not say so) and I did not have my reading glasses with me … and the publisher’s description on the back cover really whetted my interest. I am delighted to say that this time, for once, the book really lived up to the publisher’s description!The characters in this novel are marvelously drawn. The book is told in the omnipotent third person point of view, but we get so much insight into the thought processes of the two main characters that it feels like stream of consciousness. In addition, the author has an interesting style that keeps the action running fast and furiously, dropping representations of police reports and newspaper articles into the text as a way of jumping over all the bother of describing the associated scenes. What really helps is that the two main protagonists are extremely complex people and the reader gets drawn into the complexity of their relationship, which is an underlying subplot of the story. The two protagonists are two detectives in the Spokane, Washington, police department: a 36-year-old spinster (not by intent) who lives with a 24-year-old college boy and takes care of her dying mother, and the 48-year-old sergeant who trained her for ten years, until he realized they were becoming too close and demanded a job transfer to get away from her for the sake of his family. The heroine, Caroline Mabry, is an attractive and introspective young woman who gets along well with people but finds problems in being the only woman on the detective team; the hero, Sgt. Alan Dupree, is equally insightful but has an irreverent sense of humor that forces him to say delightfully inappropriate things at every turn. The two of them begin this novel with a failed drug bust that ends up with the death of one of the suspects. During the follow-up investigation, another body is discovered in the park where this action was taking place. On the same day, another murder is discovered elsewhere in the city, immediately followed by still another, and then another again. Tracking down these seemingly unrelated events, the detectives soon come to realize that they are in fact related, and an FBI profiler is called in to help track down the serial killer—with a second profiler then being drawn into the action because of his antagonism concerning the first.The story is a good read in itself, but the novel is made increasingly delightful by the sarcastic humor produced by Sgt. Dupree and the slapstick politics of the police administration, who question Sgt. Dupree’s leadership abilities and replace him as team leader with the newly graduated young officer Dupree had been training, who is smitten with both of the warring profilers. Meanwhile, Caroline goes on doing standard police work, interviewing potential witnesses and gradually coming to wonder if the whole police force is barking up the wrong tree.I enjoy complicated plots, and this one is delightful, even if the complication comes about because we only see what the author allows us to see at each successive stage of the story, as it evolves from a drug bust into murder, then into more murders, then into serial killings, with all of the action having pronounced effects on the family relationships of those involved and being garnished with Dupree’s amusing comments and Caroline’s inner conflicts throughout. Jess Walter really is a funny guy, and his humor is sprinkled throughout the novel. In addition, he is a true word master and the book is sprinkled with allusions to history and literature revealing a superior education.Doing a little (very little) research afterward on the author, I found that Jess Walker started as a journalist and got into the book-writing business by producing a book about the Ruby Ridge incident. (B the way, you really should look for his “How I Write” interview on the Web). He also has produced several books of short stories, along with some play scripts.Semi-spoiler: I slammed the book closed on the last page at an hour past midnight, very upset that the ending did not turn out the way I had expected … which reminded me that life and love remain unfathomable mysteries.
What do You think about Over Tumbled Graves (2005)?
It is interesting to read this book after Gone Girl in that like that book, "Over Tumbled Graves" is much more than what is on the surface. A serial killer is apparently loose in Spokane and two detectives (Mabry and Dupree) are in the middle of a whirlwind of suspects, bodies, FBI profilers and finally "Dateline" telecasts. But really what the book ends up being about is the banality of evil. Evil is set up to be this crafty boogeyman by pretty much everybody (including the two profilers who hate each other - that was a hoot!) when really evil is being created by circumstances of needs, opportunities and existence of the serial killer media industry - which the reader of the book is in no doubt a member of!
—Jim Leckband
This is a brilliant book which elevates the police procedural narrative to literature status. Walter's angsty heroine Caroline Mabry returns to deal with her much younger beau, Jesse and her partner-almost lover, Alan Dupree. The book starts off with a bang: a drug bust gone wrong places Mabry in danger, and an informant is killed. The action here is slow-burn: clues are thrown out, personal details given, and then the plot weaves all of these elements seamlessly. Mabry and Dupree are assigned to a serial killer case that is equal parts a good detective story and a rumination on our warped cultural fascination with these human monsters. Here we have not one, but two competing FBI profilers. Mabry travels to New Orleans to consult with one profiler named Brandon. There are satirical references to ex-profilers writing books about crimes they've worked on (which reminded me not only of Thomas Harris' "Silence of the Lambs" but also "The Cases That Haunt Us" by former profiler John Douglas ). Brandon and the other profiler, Jeff McDaniel, seem more interested in getting each other's goat than in solving a series of homicides, especially when the television series Dateline does a piece on the homicides. Mabry tries to interview and befriend Jacqueline (nee Rae-Lynn), a prostitute who's come across their killer and escaped once. Evidence piles up, but the dots aren't always connected easily by either Mabry or Dupree, who eventually bows to Detective Silvey's superior methodology (under comical protest). For the layperson who thinks that all crimes are solved within a 30 to 60 minute timeframe as on television, the dragging out of the case might seem boring, but this is how real cops work. The killer's reveal at the end didn't surprise me as much as I thought it would, but the epilogue fills in the details nicely. This is the first book by Walter that I've had the pleasure of reading, but it surely won't be the last.
—Barbara
I am on a Jess Walter tear. Under Tumbled Graves is the 5th book of Walter's that I have read. Yikes.I think my addiction stems from his newspaper reporter quality. He writes with knowledge of police and crime. He's obviously an observant man. He knows his characters and he helps us know his characters. Also, he writes from Spokane, WA which is a similar town to Tacoma. I just relate to his writing and so wish someone from Tacoma could write in this same way.This plot positions old police styles of investigation against computer data collecting, daily conferences with everyone, and expert crime profilers. There's a duo in the lead roles, the Sergeant, Alan Dupree and Caroline Mabry, special investigations detective. Sergeant Dupree is old school: gut insights and thoughtfulness. He's always cautioning himself to not jump at coincidence, to hold his patience when information starts falling into a pattern. For six years he has been working with Mabry imparting his insights and knowing that she is becoming skilled.He does, however, dismiss his new partner, Spivey. Spivey comes in with computer fact finding skills. New ways of organizing data. The higher ups love the new. Spivey replaces Dupree. And the officers actually like the more organized style that Spivey brings. But does it help solve crime?This plot is also about attraction. "The attraction between two people was directly proportional to their proximity to death. For cops,male and female officers were most susceptible to affairs during times of stress and danger..." It's also about an attraction that is never acted upon. How this un-acted attraction remains in the fantasies, in the emotions and never faces the diminished realities of daily life and how we are.Oh yes, it's also about a serial killer, prostitutes and the hazards of their lifestyles, retaliation, and rage. Fortunately Walter doesn't get graphic with these crimes. It's enough that they happened. The really interesting thing truly is the detective's psychological unraveling the story. And Walter's writing places us within the psyches of the detectives.
—Sharon Styer
