Jess Walter: Man Of His Words
Spokane native, novelist and former award-winning Spokesman-Review reporter Jess Walter releases his eighth novel Tuesday with a book launch with the paper’s Northwest Passages book club.
Here’s a look at Walter’s previously published work:
Seven Novels, Two Collections of Short Stories And One Non-Fiction Book
EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW
JAN. 1, 1995
Walter parlayed the reporting work he did for The Spokesman-Review in 1992 into a full retelling of the story of the Weaver family of North Idaho and their tragic, deadly and perhaps needless confrontation with federal agents.
- After a TV miniseries based on Walter’s book aired on CBS, he updated the book in 2002 under the title “Ruby Ridge.”
OVER TUMBLED GRAVES
FEB. 1, 2001
Walter’s first novel was about a police detective with plenty of issues of her own who investigates a killing spree of prostitutes around downtown Spokane. The plot is based on an actual case the year before in which a man was charged with killing several young prostitutes in the area.
LAND OFTHE BLIND
MARCH 18, 2003
Weary detective Caroline Mabry of the Spokane Police Department deals with a bum who confesses to a murder. The man turns out to be a former well-known politician who spends more than 19 hours writing his confession, sending Mabry on a winding hunt.
CITIZEN VINCE
APRIL 12, 2005
A small-time New York crook, relocated to Spokane by a witness protection deal, finds himself working at a doughnut shop, dabbling in a credit card theft scam, surrounded by thugs, a detective, a cute regular customer who’s involved in politics and then a murder.
- Winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for mystery writing.
THE ZERO
AUG. 29, 2006
A man wakes up after a terrorist attack with memory gaps, a gunshot wound, a new girlfriend he doesn’t remember and a mysterious assignment that puts him smack in the middle of what appears to bea sinister government plot.
- A finalist for the National Book Award and for the L.A. Times Book Prize.
- Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award.
THE FINANCIAL LIVES OF THE POETS
SEPT. 22, 2009
A business reporter quits his job to start a website that gives financial advice in sonnets and haiku. Unsurprisingly, the site quickly tanks and the writer finds himself out of work and struggling to support his troubled family during the Great Recession. So he hatches yet another questionable plot to restore his finances.
- Named Time magazine’s No. 2 novel of the year.
BEAUTIFUL RUINS
JUNE 12, 2012
The lives of five people become intertwined when an actress who appears to be “sick” checks into a rarely visited hotel on the coast of Italy.
- Spent five weeks at No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list.
- Named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times and the Washington Post.
- Named novel of the year by NPR’s “Fresh Air.”
WE LIVE IN WATER
FEB. 12, 2013
A collection of 12 short stories that had been published in Harpers, McSweeney’s, Playboy and other magazines. The stories “veer from comic tales of love to social satire to suspenseful crime fiction, from hip Portland to once-hip Seattle to never-hip Spokane,” according to the review on Amazon.
- Named by Barack Obama to his annual list of recommended books.
- Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award.
THE COLD MILLIONS
OCT. 27, 2020
“Set in Spokane, Washington, in 1909,” wrote Patrick Rapa of the Philadelphia Inquirer, “‘The Cold Millions’ is a Scorsese-esque period piece, populated by cops, drunks, variety girls, temperance ladies, job sharks, Pinkertons, Wobblies, etc. A great book to get lost in.”
- Winner of the Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction.
- Winner of the Washington State Book Award.
THE ANGEL OF ROME
JUNE 28, 2022
A second collection of Walter’s short stories — two of which had appeared in The Spokesman-Review’s Summer Stories series. “Reading Walter’s perceptive collection,” wrote Publisher’s Weekly, “is like sitting next to the guy at a dinner party who has something hilarious to say about everyone and knows all their secrets.”
Jess Walter's New Novel
A few years back, journalist Rhys Kinnick punched his conspiracy theorist son-in-law in the mouth, threw his smartphone out of his car window and went off the grid into a cabin the woods.
But his grandchildren showed up on his doorstep and he finds he must re-emerge into a world he had rejected to track down his missing daughter and save his family from the members of a dangerous militia.
SO FAR GONE
June 10th, 2025
“The characters are created with loving care, the plot with reckless glee ... Walter is a beacon of wit, decency and style,” writes Kirkus Reviews.
“So Far Gone” is “a rollicking and heartending adventure,” writes Publishers Weekly. “This captivates.”
“‘So Far Gone’ feels like a twenty-first century variation on classic detective fiction and entirely original at the same time,” writes Vogue.
Jess Walter will be the guest at a Northwest Passages book launch event Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Coughlin Theater of Gonzaga University’s Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center in Spokane.