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Beautiful Ruins by 
The Financial Lives of the Poets by
The Financial Lives of the Poets is a comic and heartfelt novel from National Book Award nominee Jess Walter, author of Citizen Vince and The Zero, about how we get to the edge of ruin--and how we begin to make our way back. Walter tells the story of Matt Prior, who's losing his job, his wife, his house, and his mind--until, all of a sudden, he discovers a way that he might just possibly be able to save it all.... and have a pretty damn great time doing it.
The Zero by
The Zero is a groundbreaking novel, a darkly comic snapshot of our times that is already being compared to the works of Franz Kafka and Joseph Heller. From its opening pages--when hero cop Brian Remy wakes up to find he's shot himself in the head--novelist Jess Walter takes us on a harrowing tour of a city and a country shuddering through the aftershocks of a devastating terrorist attack. As the smoke slowly clears, Remy finds that his memory is skipping, lurching between moments of lucidity and days when he doesn't seem to be living his own life at all. The landscape around him is at once fractured and oddly familiar: a world dominated by a Machiavellian mayor known as "The Boss," and peopled by gawking celebrities, anguished policemen peddling First Responder cereal, and pink real estate divas hyping the spoils of tragedy. Remy himself has a new girlfriend he doesn't know, a son who pretends he's dead, and an unsettling new job chasing a trail of paper scraps for a shadowy intelligence agency known as the Department of Documentation. Whether that trail will lead Remy to an elusive terror cell--or send him circling back to himself--is only one of the questions posed by this provocative yet deeply human novel. From a novelist of astounding talent, The Zero is an extraordinary story of how our trials become our transgressions, of how we forgive ourselves and whether or not we should.
We Live in Water by
From New York Times bestselling author, the first collection of short fiction from Jess Walter--a suite of diverse and searching stories about personal struggle and diminished dreams, all of them marked by the wry wit, keen eye, and generosity of spirit that has made him a bookseller and reader favorite Stories in We Live in Water range from comic tales of love to social satire and suspenseful crime fiction. Traveling from hip Portland to once-hip Seattle to never-hip Spokane, to a condemned casino in Las Vegas and a bottomless lake in the dark woods of Idaho, this is a world of lost fathers and redemptive con men, of personal struggles and diminished dreams. In title story "We Live in Water", a lawyer returns to his corrupt hometown to find his father, who disappeared 30 years earlier. In "Thief," a blue-collar worker turns unlikely detective to find out which of his kids is stealing from the family fund. "Anything Helps" sees a homeless man try to raise money to buy his son the new Harry Potter book; and in "Virgo," a newspaper editor attempts to get back at his superstitious ex-girlfriend by screwing with her horoscope. Also included are "Don't Eat Cat" and "Statistical Abstract of My Hometown, Spokane, Washington," both of which achieved cult status after their first publication online.
Citizen Vince by
At 1:59 a.m. in Spokane, Washington--eight days before the 1980 presidential election--Vince Camden pockets his stash of stolen credit cards and drops by an all-night poker game before heading to his witness-protection job dusting crullers at Donut Make You Hungry. Along with a neurotic hooker girlfriend, this is the total sum of Vince's new life. But when a familiar face shows up in town, Vince realizes his sordid past is still too close behind him. During the next unforgettable week, he'll negotiate a coast-to-coast maze of obsessive cops, eager politicians, and assorted mobsters--only to find that redemption might exist, of all places, in the voting booth.
Over Tumbled Graves by
InOver Tumbled Graves, Jess Walter, National Book Award finalist and author of Citizen Vince and The Zero, confronts our fascination with pathology and murder. A thriller of extraordinary depth and dimension, Over Tumbled Graves follows Caroline Mabry, a Spokane police detective searching for a serial murderer.
The Best American Short Stories 2007 by 
Land of the Blind by
In Land of the Blind, Jess Walter, National Book Award finalist and author of Citizen Vince and The Zero, explores the bonds and compromises we make as children--and the fatal errors we can make at any time in our lives. Fiendishly clever and darkly funny, Land of the Blind follows Caroline Mabry, a weary police detective racing against the clock to investigate both a murder and two men's darkly intertwined lives.