From Barnes & NobleThe Barnes & Noble Review
Veteran journalist Jess Walter (Every Knee Shall Bow) has just written what might be termed the first postmodern serial killer story. In his debut novel, Over Tumbled Graves, Walter takes the standard elements of an overworked form -- the string of brutal killings, the protracted manhunt, the speculative, specialized psychological profiles -- and effectively turns them on their head.
Over Tumbled Graves -- a title derived from T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland -- begins in Spokane, Washington, in April 2001. (And April, as Eliot reminds us, is the cruelest month.) In the opening pages, a drug-related sting operation goes tragically wrong, and undercover operative Caroline Mabrey watches helplessly as one of her two targets pushes the other -- a small-time drug dealer -- into the rocky, churning rapids of the Spokane River and then makes his escape.
