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Land of the Blind

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

"A mystery novel of profound depth." — Booklist (starred review)

"Walter is at his incisive best. . . . Hypnotically compelling." — Publishers Weekly

In this fiendishly clever and darkly funny novel, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walter, explores the bonds and compromises we make as children—and the fatal errors we can make at any time in our lives.

A 400-page confession.

And a murder that took a lifetime to commit.

Jess Walter's widely acclaimed debut thriller, Over Tumbled Graves, matched a genre-bending plot with exceptional intelligence and human insight. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, it was praised in the Washington Post Book World as a work of "tremendous emotional impact," and James Patterson wrote that Walter had "just about lapped the field with his superior first novel."

Now Walter returns to up the ante once again. Land of the Blind brings back Spokane police detective Caroline Mabry—and pits her in a battle of wits against a mysterious, yet oddly familiar figure who appears one Friday night, seeming disoriented and wearing an eye patch. He has a confession to make, the man announces, but he insists on writing it out—and it may take a while.

Nineteen hours later—with the stranger still writing—Caroline finds herself scrambling to investigate not merely a murder, but the story of two men's darkly intertwined lives...and to find the body that awaits her, somewhere in the city.

The result is a novel of rich characterization and riveting suspense: by turns haunting and witty, but always compelling, Land of the Blind is that rare thing—a suspense novel that is genuinely original.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 10, 2003
      Spokane detective Caroline Mabry, the heroine of Walter's acclaimed debut, Over Tumbled Graves, returns in a supporting role in this new thriller. Burned out on the job and stuck in the night shift, Caroline is in the station house when Clark Mason stumbles in after midnight, needing to confess to a murder. With his fitted shirt, long tousled hair and eye patch (all three black), Clark intrigues Caroline, even as she chastises herself for the vague attraction. Before long, he's frenziedly writing his story on a series of legal pads, and she's following up on the leads that spill from his lips as he writes. His flashbacks stretch as far back as childhood, when Clark alternately befriends and betrays the intense misfit Eli Boyle. The first betrayal occurs when Clark is caught between scapegoat Eli and scary preteen bully Pete Kramer. Adolescence, with its romantic predicaments, only complicates the relationship between these three. As Clark's narrative rolls slowly forward in time, Caroline tracks down the people he mentions. Walter is at his incisive best juxtaposing the characters in the present with their childhood selves. Spokane is carefully rendered in all its moody complexity. Wracked by urban blight and an inferiority complex (it's no Seattle), the city holds an ineffable attraction for both Caroline and Clark. Similarly, Walter's novel takes sketchy detours and its characters repel as much as compel, but lucid writing and a palpable sense of nostalgia make it hypnotically compelling. (Mar.)Forecast:This thriller is more quiet and literary than Walter's debut, but a stylish cover and West Coast author tour should help get readers' attention.

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  • English

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