Mystery & Crime

Land of the Blind

Name: Land of the Blind
Author: Jess Walter
ISBN: 9780061712845

by Jess Walter

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Overview

While working the weekend night shift, Caroline Mabry, a weary Spokane police detective, encounters a seemingly unstable but charming derelict who tells her, "I'd like to confess." But he insists on writing out his statement in longhand. In the forty-eight hours that follow, the stranger confesses to not just a crime but an entire life—spinning a wry and haunting tale of youth and adulthood, of obsession and revenge, and of two men's intertwined lives.

Fiendishly clever and darkly funny, Land of the Blind speaks to the bonds and compromises we make as children—and to the fatal errors we can make at any time.

Synopsis

Fiendishly clever and darkly funny, Land of the Blind speaks to the bonds and compromises we make as children—and to the fatal errors we can make at any time.

Publishers Weekly

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. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

About the Author, Jess Walter

Jess Walter not only won the prestigious Edgar Award for his novel Citizen Vince -- as an acclaimed investigative reporter, he presented the compelling true story of Ruby Ridge: The Truth and Tragedy of the Randy Weaver Family. His latest foray into fiction, The Zero, has earned him a National Book Award nomination.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

For Spokane Police Detective Caroline Mabry, the first questions that a confessor to a homicide answers are "who" and "what," naming the victim and the crime. For confessor Clark Mason, picked up as a derelict yet oddly familiar and just short of attractive, all that matters is "why." A one-eyed former high-tech millionaire who made an unsuccessful run for Congress, Mason writes a statement of fact on four legal pads over 19 hours to explain his role in the death of his longtime friend, Eli Boyle. Mason's statement, which makes up the bulk of this novel, is interspersed with attempts by Mabry-whose job performance has been slipping as personal losses sink her into depression-to identify and find a body. Walter (Over Tumbled Graves) keeps the suspense at a high level to the very end; fans will want more of Mabry and possibly Mason, too. This compelling, intelligent novel, with its strong section on childhood and keen insights throughout, is highly recommended for all fiction collections.-Michele Leber, formerly with Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

The confusions of youth shape tragic, unhappy lives in this somber, absorbing second novel. As he did in Over Tumbled Graves (2001), Walter uses the terse police procedural as framework for what becomes a flowing story of character. Spokane police detective Caroline Mabry (returning from Graves) confronts a man, Clark Mason, who wants to confess to murder. Insisting he write his confession, Mason fills legal pads with his "Statement of Fact," which turns into a fevered autobiography in which his vision-and that of the other characters-is scarcely factual, much less perceptive. (A childhood bully has blinded one of Mason's eyes.) Mason writes that his victim was Eli Boyle, a friend since childhood. Bearing a limp, a lisp, crossed eyes, and a snowstorm of dandruff, Boyle is the ultimate class nerd-until a swift, winning play at battle ball transforms him into a school hero. When Boyle asks Mason to rehabilitate him, Mason complies, setting him up with blossoming Dana Brett. Mason, though, finds Brett irresistible. Come prom night, Boyle discovers the two making love, and tensions thereafter rive all three of them. Brett marries a dull, aggressive man, Mason seeks direction in his life through politics, and Boyle retreats into a strange interactive character game called "Empire." He and Mason hatch a plan to develop "Empire" into video game that leads to Boyle's death. Offsetting Mason's dark meditations (and nimbly steering the book itself away from ponderous terrain) are several interjected chapters tracing Mabry's investigation into the case. Depressed by her violent work and unhappy personal life, Mabry identifies uneasily with Mason. As he sits on the high ledge of a hotel, Mabry crawlsout and joins him to watch the sun rise over a bleak city. Walter renders his blind land with a clear-eyed, compassionate vision.