A word of warning for those of you who like the sound of Jess Walter’s Over Tumbled Graves. You may wish to listen to the opening chapter in the comfort of your own home with a loo within easy reach. I was stuck in a car on the M5 and can confirm that the description of a fast-flowing river is all too evocative!
That river in Spokane, Washington, is a recurring theme in the book as detective Caroline Mabry and her colleague Alan Dupree struggle to track down a serial killer. And chapter headings echoing TS Eliot’s classic poem The Waste Land continue that water theme.
If you’ll excuse the labouring of water puns, the book hooked me and reeled me in from the start. It’s not your conventional crime novel in that surprisingly little happens and there’s a significant amount of philosophising within characters’ heads. But the book never feels bogged down and I looked forward avidly to my next car journey when I could listen to the next installment. And I almost forgave it some cliches – the unresolved love between Caroline and Alan, and, more problematically, Caroline’s shambolic private life.
Of these two leading characters, Dupree is by far the most engaging. He’s the obligatory maverick with the disintegrating marriage, but he has character and charisma. The scenes produced in transcript form of his disciplinary hearing had me howling with laughter, much to the surprise of the person in the car next to me at traffic lights!
By contrast, Caroline is a rather distant character, floating around in a sort of daze. She has a sick mother and an unfaithful toyboy boyfriend to contend with, as well as her confused feelings for her mentor Dupree. In many ways she’s not a convincing detective with her detached air and constant prevaricating and heart-searching, and it’s difficult not to agree with villain Lennie Ryan when he doubts her sanity at one stage!
But Walter is a sharp story-teller who can vary the pace with scenes in transcript
and letter form, as well as knocking out some enviably snappy dialogue and some
memorable cameo roles – my personal favourites were the egocentric, feuding
profilers. Laurence Bouvard is a more than competent reader, if a little too
swift in places for my struggling British ears. Oh and just for the record .
. . Jess Walter is a he and Laurence Bouvard is a she!
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Sharon Wheeler