Walter, Jess 1965-

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Walter, Jess 1965-

PERSONAL:

Born 1965. Education: Graduated from Eastern Washington University.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Spokane, WA. E-mail—j.walter@comcast.net.

CAREER:

Novelist, journalist, screenwriter, and investigative reporter. Spokesman-Review, reporter.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Member of Pulitzer Prize finalist reporting team for spot news reporting, 1992; finalist, PEN Center West Literary Nonfiction Award, 1995, for Every Knee Shall Bow: The Truth and Tragedy of Ruby Ridge and the Randy Weaver Family; Edgar Allan Poe Award, best novel, Mystery Writers of America, 2006, for Citizen Vince; National Book Award finalist, 2006, for The Zero; Livingston Award for reporters under thirty-five years of age, two-time finalist; recipient of numerous regional and national reporting and writing awards.

WRITINGS:

Every Knee Shall Bow: The Truth and Tragedy of Ruby Ridge and the Randy Weaver Family, Regan Books (New York, NY), 1995, published as Ruby Ridge, 2001.

(With Christopher Darden) In Contempt, G.K. Hall & Company (Thorndike, ME), 1996.

Over Tumbled Graves (novel), Regan Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Land of the Blind (novel), Regan Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Citizen Vince (novel), Regan Books (New York, NY), 2005.

The Zero (novel), Regan Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Walter's books have been translated into twelve languages.

ADAPTATIONS:

Ruby Ridge was adapted as a television movie, Tragedy at Ruby Ridge, in 1996; Citizen Vince is under movie option by Home Box Office (HBO).

SIDELIGHTS:

Jess Walter is a journalist who has specialized in such true crime subjects as the FBI siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, the trial of O.J. Simpson, and serial killers. He has also written several novels.

Walter's first book, Every Knee Shall Bow: The Truth and Tragedy of Ruby Ridge and the Randy Weaver Family, came from his coverage of the Weaver case that helped earn a Pulitzer Prize nomination for the Spokane Spokesman-Review. The book examines the case in depth. The federal government tried to coerce Idaho resident Randy Weaver, a survivalist who lived in an isolated mountain cabin, into informing on local White separatists. Unable to persuade him, they then arrested him on a gun charge. When Weaver missed a court date in connection with the case, the government stormed his cabin, killing his 14-year-old son, Samuel, and his wife Vicki as she stood on the porch holding their infant child. A deputy U.S. marshal was also killed in the raid. Walter interviewed members of the Weaver family, and provides a minute-by-minute account of the tragic siege as well as of the trials of Weaver and his accomplice.

Jeffrey Kaplan commented in Christian Century: "The strength of Walter's presentation is his neutrality. The book resonates with compassion for all who were caught up in the events at Ruby Ridge, yet that compassion never overwhelms critical judgment…. While condemning the bungled operation and the poorly executed cover-up which followed, Walter is able to draw sympathetic portraits of the federal agents involved at the scene … no less than the deaths of Vicky and Samuel Weaver."

In a review for the New York Times, Laura Mansnerus also praised the book, noting that Walter "delivers a stunning job of reporting. He knows the Weavers' pantry and their reading lists, their plumbing triumphs and their feuds with neighbors…. He also misses nothing of the operation on Ruby Ridge and its gross miscalculations, or of the trial in which a jury acquitted Mr. Weaver of murder charges in the death of a Federal marshal, or of the family's repatriation to Iowa. Altogether, Walter's account makes the conspiracy theories on both sides look as fractured and pointless as the evening news."

At the close of the O.J. Simpson trial, Walter was contacted by prosecutor Christopher Darden to cowrite his memoir of the proceedings. Eventually published as In Contempt, the book received critical praise for its focus on the pertinent issues of the trial. Still seething from his year-plus-long ordeal, Darden lashes out in all directions: at defense attorneys Johnnie Cochran and F. Lee Bailey, LAPD crime-scene technician Dennis Fung, Detective Mark Fuhrman, Judge Lance Ito, and at himself, for having had Simpson try on the infamous gloves. Darden saves his deepest anger, however, for the celebrity defendant himself—a boyhood hero whom he came to see as a murderous coward. "I could see right through him," Darden writes. "Right through to the evil, and he didn't like it."

Walter, who covered a rash of serial killings for the Washington Post, shifts to fiction in the character-driven novel Over Tumbled Graves. The story, played out in Walter's native Spokane, follows a handful of homicide investigators who watch helplessly as one prostitute after another is found murdered in a downtown park. Sgt. Alan Dupree, an old-style cop who eschews modern police investigative methods such as criminal profiling, initially leads the team. As the death toll of the so-called Southbank Killer increases, Dupree is replaced by Chris Spivey, an arrogant upstart with great academic credentials but no street smarts. Spivey brings in two nationally known serial-killer profilers, who waste time belittling each other. Spivey also recruits Detective Caroline Mabry, a hard-working investigator who manages to rise above squad-room politics and disagreements about how the case should be handled.

A Publishers Weekly reviewer called Mabry "a complex character, suffering from a raft of personal problems as well as career doubts. She and Dupree finally uncover evidence that the whole investigation has been built on a faulty premise. Unlike many entries in the serial killer category, Walter's stays fresh by placing character development above shock value. His focus is on the human side of police work, not on the killer and his ghoulish behavior." In a review for Booklist, Wes Lukowsky wrote that Over Tumbled Graves "is an accomplished character study of Detective Mabry that will appeal especially to fans of T. Jefferson Parker. Crime exists as a vehicle for the core of the story: Mabry's struggle to find peace in a world filled with death, heartbreak, and greed. A very satisfying debut."

In his next novel, Land of the Blind, Walter brings back Caroline Mabry for an encore performance. A recently demoted Mabry is on duty in the police station when a rumpled vagrant with an eye patch staggers in, declaring that he needs to confess to a murder. At first, Mabry believes the one-eyed man is merely a deranged vagrant, but she soon discovers that he is in fact Clark Mason, a politician who recently failed in a bid to get elected to congress. Mason goes on a frenzied writing spree, filling up numerous yellow legal pads with his confession, which becomes more and more like his life story. Mason recounts stories of his high school years with his best friend Boyle, a misfit and object of ridicule. Adolescent turmoil, including conflicts over the lovely Dana Brett, strain the relationship between Boyle and Mason. Years later, however, Mason has secured venture capital funding to create a video game, and he contacts Boyle to help with the technical side of the business. The money flows regularly, but when their plans go awry, Boyle ends up dead and Mason seeks to confess to his killing. As Mabry follows up the leads in Mason's bizarre story, she struggles with a real but unwanted sense of attraction to the man. In assessing the novel, a Publishers Weekly reviewer stated that "lucid writing and a palpable sense of nostalgia make it hypnotically compelling." Walter "keeps the suspense at a high level to the very end," commented Michelle Leber in the Library Journal. A Kirkus Reviews contributor observed that Walter "renders his blind land with a clear-eyed, compassionate vision," while Booklist reviewer Wes Lukowsky called the book a "haunting, deeply troubling novel."

Citizen Vince, which won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America, centers on the life of Vince Camden, a thirty-six-year-old doughnut store manager in Spokane, WA. Vince, however, is not who he appears to be. The tall, broad-shouldered, slender man is a felon in the witness protection program. After escaping from his dangerous life of crime as Marty Hagen, he is beginning to enjoy the simple pleasures of a life not defined by the ethic of kill-or-be-killed. Even the tedium of running the doughnut shop is a welcome relief. Yet Vince is still a con-man at heart, running a number of side businesses, including selling pot to prostitutes, winning big at clandestine poker games, and running a ring of credit card thieves. Meanwhile, Vince must also balance romantic interest from two women in his life. His life seems to have reached a comfortable plateau when mob hitman Ray (Sticks) Scatieri turns up looking for Vince with murder on his mind. Vince has to find out who sent him, and quickly, to see if he can make good on whatever debt has endangered his life.

A Kirkus Reviews writer commented that Vince's tale is "a story full of wonderful small surprises—among them Vince's way of finally achieving citizenhood. Dispassionate and compassionate by turns, and always engrossing." Walter's "unlikely redemption works because of Walter's virtuoso command of character and dialogue—along with a wicked second-act twist," commented Frank Sennett in Booklist. In the character of Vince Camden, "Walter has created what may be the most charming small-time hood since Elmore Leonard's Stick," remarked Philip Elmer-DeWitt in Time. Marianne Fitzgerald, writing in the Library Journal, noted that Vince is "a flawed but sympathetic character trying to find redemption." The Kirkus Reviews critic concluded that the book is "Walter's best by far."

New York City police officer Brian Remy, the main character of The Zero, is trying to reconstruct the events of the last few days that led to him, apparently accidentally, shooting himself in the head, inflicting a minor grazing wound. It has been four days since the events of September 11th, 2001, and Remy is well aware of that, but other inexplicable developments in his life baffle him. He has a new and quite lovely girlfriend. His son mourns for his father as though he had been killed in the Twin Towers. Remy keeps getting calls from a mysterious organization that will not identify itself or tell him what it wants. Remy's position as a police escort and tour guide for celebrities who want to see Ground Zero up close has not been compromised, but soon he has been selected for a position on the Documentation Department. This group, connected with the shadowy government agency, the Office of Liberty and Recovery, hires Remy to help sort through the millions of scraps of paper that resulted when the Twin Towers fell. Soon, however, he discovers that the Documentation Department is not a benevolent agency, and is in fact illegally searching for evidence against American citizens. He finds himself deeply enmeshed in this government plot, with his only ally the city's mayor, unnamed but known as "The Boss."

Walter mixes the "surreal cityscape of Blade Runner with a touch of Kafka" to create "what may be the perfect metaphor for the way we experience today's world," observed Booklist reviewer Bill Ott. A Publishers Weekly reviewer called The Zero "a deliriously mordant political satire." A Kirkus Reviews critic called The Zero a "brilliant tour-de-force that's as heartrending as it is harrowing," concluding that the book is "the breakout novel of a brave and talented young writer."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 1995, Bonnie Smothers, review of Every Knee Shall Bow: The Truth and Tragedy of Ruby Ridge and the Randy Weaver Family, p. 364; January 1, 2001, Wes Lukowsky, review of Over Tumbled Graves, p. 927; February 15, 2003, Wes Lukowsky, review of Land of the Blind, p. 1055; November 15, 2004, Frank Sennett, review of Citizen Vince, p. 566; September 15, 2006, Bill Ott, review of The Zero, p. 6.

Christian Century, June 19, 1996, Jeffrey Kaplan, review of Every Knee Shall Bow, p. 657.

Entertainment Weekly, April 29, 2005, Thom Geier, review of Citizen Vince, p. 155; September 8, 2006, Will Boisvert, Thom Geier, and Tina Jordan, "Diamonds in the Rough Stuff," review of the Zero, p. 163.

Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2003, review of Land of the Blind, p. 112; September 1, 2004, review of Citizen Vince, p. 836; May 15, 2006, review of The Zero, p. S14; July 15, 2006, review of The Zero, p. 700.

Library Journal, January, 2003, Michele Leber, review of Land of the Blind, p. 161; March 15, 2005, Marianne Fitzgerald, review of Citizen Vince, p. 76; August 1, 2006, Bob Lunn, review of The Zero, p. 75.

New York Law Review, April 26, 1996, review of In Contempt, p. 2.

New York Review of Books, June 6, 1996, Elizabeth Hardwick, review of In Contempt, p. 7.

New York Times Book Review, February 11, 1996, Laura Mansnerus, review of Every Knee Shall Bow, p. 23; April 28, 1996, Adam Hochschild, review of In Contempt, p. 14; March 4, 2001, Marilyn Stasio, review of Over Tumbled Graves, p. 25; April 18, 2005, Janet Maslin, "Reagan, Carter, and the Doughnut Man," review of Citizen Vince; September 11, 2006, Janet Maslin, "After the Cataclysm, A Surreal Drift of Failing Senses," review of The Zero.

Publishers Weekly, May 6, 1996, audiobook review of In Contempt, p. 31; February 10, 2003, review of Land of the Blind, p. 161; May 1, 2006, "It's No Mystery," p. 8; July 24, 2006, review of The Zero, p. 33.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 13, 2006, Nicholas K. Geranios, "There's No Mystery to This Spokane Author's Success," profile of Jess Walter.

Stanford Law Review, April, 1997, George Fisher, review of In Contempt, p. 971.

Time, June 26, 2006, Philip Elmer-DeWitt, "Five Mystery Writers Worth Investigating," review of Citizen Vince, p. 71.

Times Literary Supplement, December 19, 1996, A.W.B. Simpson, review of In Contempt, p. 28.

Western State University Law Review, fall, 1996, Andrea J. Werlin, review of In Contempt, p. 207.