Mary Willis Walker Books

Walker's novel is smart, insightful, frightening, exciting, and moving--particularly the last. I've read it three times now, and (not quite a spoiler), I sob my heart out at the end each time. I can't even describe the plot without tearing up. She has, in the character of the bus driver, created one of the most admirable heroes you'll ever get to know in a novel. One of my favorite ten mystery novels of all times.

Ok, like the title said, I don't read much. The last book I read....hmm....is "where's Waldo?" really considered a book? Anyways, I picked up this book at the library to show my daughter reading books is good. It sat on the kitchen table for weeks (had to renew it at the library!).

One day, I was home alone with the flu; decided to read this book to get my mind off my being so sick. Needless to say it sucked me in! I don't know what it was about the book. Molly Cates (the lead character) isn't a superhero with a cape, the idea of reading a book so DARK (really dark---11 children and a busdriver underground with a dying light bulb)doesn't sound EXTRAORDINARY, but I found myself engulfed in this novel.

Molly Cates--so ordinary. Because of that I found myself relating to her...a 40-something single mother of a 24 year old daughter...even though I'm only 25! A romance rekindled with her daughters dad. A wacked out psycho bible thumper holding 12 people in a buried school bus on his compound.

Chapters twisted between Molly's investigating the psycho's past, while working with Lover (a leiutenant) and his department to figure out where, why, how, etc. The kids and adult on the bus, -- telling stories, fighting, kids getting sick, passing time. Time....the book starts on day 46...the world is suppossed to end in 50. Although 46 days has passed, Mary Willis Walker fills you in on the events that lead to their captivity, up to their current situation.

Molly Cates is so NORMAL that I enjoyed reading ABOUT her---although I felt I was reading WITH heR.

Her love affair with her ex-husband is a nice side story too.
I wish I had more room to go into detail.......but then I'd end up giving up some of the thrill of the book, and THIS BOOK IS JUST TOO WONDERFUL TO SPOIL IT FOR YOU.

I LOVED THIS BOOK. Buy it here, get it from the library, borrow it from a friend...just get it and read it. You won't regret it.
I just LOVE this Molly Cates character so much, and I was thrilled find out that there are 3 books starring Molly Cates. The bad thing is UNDER THE BEETLES CELLAR is number 2...so I had to go and get the first one (THE RED SCREAM). It tied up some of the questions I had (like how did she start seeing the ex-husband again?) stuff. I just finished reading THE RED SCREAM and now I have the answers. The only bad thing about reading Under the Beetles Cellar first, was that I sort of knew a major detail about The Red Scream...Molly Cate's doesn't die at the end of the first book. But, still worth every second of both books. Where's number 3!!!!!

Anyways, the book was just fantastic! I couldn't turn the pages quick enough, let alone put it down. UNDER THE BEETLES CELLAR is a better reason to destroy trees for the pages than toilet paper! Read it and you'll be SOOOO happy you didn! Enjoy it!

Now, I must go review The Red Scream!

In the past seven days, I have been priviledged to read two of the best contemporary, yet believably realistic books, I have come across as of yet in many a moon. One was Bernice McFadden's sad and beautiful The Warmest December, and also this gripping saga by Mary Willis Walker. I expect she was heavily influenced by the Waco tragedy as this was published not long afterward. We don't know much about the victims of the real tragedy, but here Walker takes and breathes amazing life into her victims, a bus driver who served in Vietnam, and 11 children who are hidden underground beneath a barn for a 50-day "earth purification" before the world ends--at least according to religious fanatical cult leader Samuel Mordecai.

This is also the story of reporter Molly Cates, an incredibly brave and determined journalist who truly cares about the victims, and all the people tied to both the predator and his prey, beginning on day 46 of the 50-day torture.

Walker has the ability to take you into a nightmarish world that's hell on the cops and feds who know Mordecai is never going to let his hostages go, and she also shows you the resilience of young children in a hopeless and frightening situation. I was extraordinarily moved by their ability to keep up a sense of humor and sheer resolve alternately with low, hopeless moments of despair, and the reluctant heroism of bus driver Walter as he kept the kids calm with his soap operatic story of the turkey vulture named Jacksonville and the armadillo named Lopez that reflected his and a friend's time in captivity back in Vietnam.

Amazingly powerful and moving, this is a story that shows both the cruelty of the human animal that man can be, and also the tireless, selfless dedication of others as the opposing force. More than that, it shows that humans can be stronger than they ever thought themselves capable in a seemingly hopeless situation. This is a truly amazing book that had me winded by the time the climax arrived, and that's a very good thing!

Walker's riveting third novel features a bus driver and 11 elementary school children abducted by an apocalyptic religious cult, resulting in a 50-day stand-off between federal agents and armed cult members.

Protagonist Molly Cates, a crime writer for a Texas magazine and the only one to ever interview the cult's charismatic leader, Samuel Mordecai, is in a race against time to discover something about Mordecai that will give the hostage negotiators some leverage before the promised apocalypse on day 50.

The novel opens on the 46th day. Walter Demming, the bus driver, a psychologically scarred Vietnam vet who has spent the last 20 years guarding his life from involvement, keeps his charges' spirits up with the continuing adventures of a vulture named Jacksonville, counterbalancing the daily harangues from the cult's leader.

Demming and the children, ranging in age from 6 to 12, are imprisoned in a derelict bus buried underground in an old barn. Worms and bugs tunnel in the earth packed against the bus' windows. One of their two bare light bulbs has just burned out. The children play tic-tac-toe on the windows and pogs in the aisles between the seats.

Fed twice a day on cereal and milk, they fantasize about food. They argue, snap at one another, burst into tears. One of the children suffers from severe asthma. The cult refuses medication and his attacks terrify everyone.

Without melodrama or mush, Walker develops a group dynamic that relies on breathing life into the individual children and especially Demming, a reluctant hero who's scared and lost and determined to do his best.

Walker alternates between scenes in the bus and efforts on the outside. The police, the FBI and the hostage negotiator have gotten nowhere with Mordecai and don't know where the children are being held. Cates, herself viscerally intimidated by her one meeting with the cult leader, delves into the odd circumstances of his birth and his harsh childhood, which clearly loom large in his religious landscape.

Cates' detective work, which involves bending more than a few of her own personal and professional rules, is absorbing and ingenious without being unbelievable. As Mordecai's pathology unfolds, we also get a portrait of Demming from his home and his two close friends.

Cates herself is a prickly but appealing character. A loner with a grown daughter, she's in love with her ex-husband (one of the cops) and driven but ambivalent about her job.

The suspense is nail-biting, but what makes this novel a stand-out is Demming and the kids. Walker gets the atmosphere of timeless boredom and fear just right, the children's voices ring true and Demming's character, revealed in accumulating flashes throughout the narrative, is utterly believable.

A scary thriller with a smashing explosive finish.

I've enjoyed all of Ms. Walker's books, but this is my favorite. In fact, this is one of my all-time favorite suspense novels, period. I love the concept, and the characterization is superb. You also might want to try The Red Scream. It's almost as good.

Anyone know if/when she has a new book coming out?

Patricia Lewin, Author of BLIND RUN, OUT OF REACH, & OUT OF TIME

I really enjoyed reading the book becuase it is thrilling from the beginning until the very end. The pieces of information are given one after the other throughout the whole book, which creates tension and until the vey end you do not have any idea who the killer ist and what really happened on that specific day.

Edgar-Award winning author Mary Willis Walker demonstrates her talent as a serious writer with this death penalty novel. She does not preach but provide a few things that could go wrong when executing someone guilty of capital murder. In this novel she introduces Louie Bronk, a self-confessed serial killer, who in the next few days will be executed for a crime he might have not committed.

Molly Cates is a crime writer for Lone Star Monthly from Austin, Texas. She has recently published a true crime book chronicling the life of Louie Bronk and the murder of Andrea `Tiny' McFarland. As she prepares to follow-up with this story she is being deterred by the victim's husband as well as her boss no to proceed with the story. A few days later two people related to the McFarlands are brutally murdered. If this was not bad enough Bronk confesses to dozens of murders except the McFarland one. He has found religion and he is not going to confess to something he did not do. Molly hates to look like a fool after everything she went to write her book so she is determined to find out the truth. Everything she believed about the case will be shattered and she will do what she can to make things right.

Mary Willis Walker has a winner with this book. This is her first book in a series that will be a pleasure to continue to read. Her character development is very strong by showing everything she can reveal about Molly, warts and all. There are times when Ms. Cates is not sure about what she is doing that the author reflects on her weaknesses and her insecurities. This makes her appear more real to the reader and more appealing. THE RED SCREAM is pure enjoyment and hopefully her other novels will be just as good.

Molly Cates, the feisty journalist who sometimes seems like she is channeling Texas' own Molly Ivins, made her debut in this, the second novel by Mary Willis Walker which became the winner of the prestigious Edgar Award for 1994.

Molly is even better in the sequel book, the sublimely creepy UNDER THE BEETLE'S CELLAR, before taking a sharp turn downwards in the homeless-theme mystery ALL THE DEAD LIE DOWN, which won the Stupid Title Award the year it appeared.

In RED SCREAM, Molly tangles with the Texas Scalper, a convicted murderer she begins to suspect is not as evil or guilty as he seems, especially when a copycat murder takes place under circumstances which make it clear that Louie couldn't have committed this murder. It's scary, it's suspenseful, and the poetry about which so many have complained is actually very accomplished and lyrical.

The only question is, what has happened to Mary Willis Walker? It's been a long time since ALL THE DEAD LAY DOWN. If anyone has the answer, could you post here on Amazon Com and sate the curiosity of a bereft fan.

I have to say I am surprized by the glowing reviews that this book has previously received on Amazon - disapointed too as I bought the book on the strength of them. That will teach me!

The Red Scream is not a bad book it is simply nothing special. Yet another pseudo-femminist heroine of a certain age, with a boring relative (daughter) for padding.

Each chapter is introduced by a deliberately bad poem (by the "arch-villain") which is of no relevance to what immediately follows (that I can see) and has, therefore, no validity stylistically or otherwise. And the constant harping on about "the red scream" itself? I got it the first time. It didn't need hammering home!

The cover design is cheap and nasty and the cover blurb is ludicrous - "One of the creepiest killers since Hannibal Lecter"??? I think not!

It reads like a crime story by numbers. The kind of safe, formulaic fiction that publishers churn out when they want a safe bet .

Disappointing.

I don't know what it is about this Molly Cates Woman. I just love her in this book (the first starring Molly Cates) and UNDER THE BEETLE'S CELLAR (the second starring Molly Cates).

Like I said in my review of Under the Beetle's Cellar, she's so normal. Because of that, she's so easy to relate to. She's a crime reporter for a monthly magazine.

In this book Molly has written a book (and several newspaper articles) about this psycho that kills people and then shaves their heads.

Molly Cates is anti-death penalty; but she admits that even Louie Bronk deserves to die. He's committed many many murders and shavings over the years. Then it comes to her attention that Louie Bronk may be just days away from being executed for the capital crime he may or may not have committed [the murder of an woman married to an upper class man] (although, let's not forget he's committed others--all worthy of the death penalty).

Well, her book comes out. She starts getting letters in her mail that lead her to believe that there may be a copy cat on the loose. When the 2nd wife of the upper class man gets murdered...people start thinking copycat or are we about to execute the wrong person?!

Needless to say, the book is creepy, scary, messed up, entertaining. It keeps you guessing all the way to the end!

Mary Willis Walker has a way of writing that's so wonderful I just can't describe it.

Just READ THIS Book and then read Under The Beetle's Cellar. You'll be so happy you did.

The bad part of the books starring Molly Cates? They End!! BooHoo!

"All The Dead Lie Down" is the third outing starring Molly Cates, a talented, gutsy reporter and true-crime writer who is haunted by her past. Previous readers will know that Molly's father died when she was a teenager - his death was ruled a suicide but Molly remains convinced he was murdered. Her quest to uncover the truth then very nearly destroyed her. A quarter century afterwards, Molly discovers new information and vows to find out what really happened, reopening all sorts of not-quite-healed wounds along the way. Molly's search takes her from the halls of Texas government to Austin's mean streets to an ethical dilemma she never expected.

As well as being a gripping, suspenseful thriller which never lets up, the story raises issues such as believing what you want to believe, truth, justice, family love and loyalty and just how far you would go to preserve it.

This novel has two main plots being run in parallel. The story tends to jump back and forth between plots, which makes it somewhat difficult to follow the story line. Initially, they do not seem tied together, but eventually they come together, more or less. I was left with the impression that I was coming into the story somewhere in the middle. Did I miss a prequel about the characters?

Molly Cates is obsessed with her father's death. In an attempt to spare her the details, well meaning people ruin her life. She finally comes to closure as she learns the sordid details, including the evil details of a former sheriff. "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."

The second plot involves a radical group planning an attack on the Texas State Senate. This involves a different group, unrelated to the first plot, although connected to acquaintances of Molly. Homeless people learn of the plan, and one attempts to contact Molly. Molly is off chasing her obsession with her father.

The story finally comes to a blazing finale. The white hats win, and various people come to grips with their pasts.

This is an ambitious attempt by Edgar Winner Mary Willis Walker starring Molly Cates for the third time. For the most part, it was a first-rate effort of combining politics, homelessness, and a 28-year-old unsolved mystery.

I found no part of the novel far-fetched. I might have done so before April 19, 1995, (Oklahoma City Federal Building explosion), but no more. A well-designed plan to release lethal nerve gas in the State Senate Chamber was shocking, but by no means unbelievable. The chilling non-personage treatment of homeless people is an everyday occurrence. In Texas, unusual politics is politics as usual.

The characterizations are superb, and the story is tightly plotted. Balancing two main stories, the homeless Sarah Jane and Molly's self-mutilating investigation of her father's death 28 years ago, is a tough assignment, and is not always successful. I found myself deeply involved with homeless Sarah Jane who seemed to me more interesting than Molly. It could be that crimes committed 28 years ago lack in immediacy. I would find myself drawn back to Molly's story by the repulsive former Sheriff Crocker. The worst part wasn't his disgusting persona, it was that it was so familiar. We have all met a Sheriff Crocker, and been far the worse for the encounter.

The story was taut, leading to an unbearably suspenseful showdown. Even if the house were burning down, you wouldn't move till you finished the last ten pages.

Molly Cates was introduced in the Edgar Award winning novel THE RED SCREAM. She is a writer for Lone Star Monthly and she has been obsessed in learning the truth about her father's death. For the last twenty-eight years she has spent her spare time investigating her father's alleged suicide at the expense of her job and her family. In Mary Willis Walker's latest novel Molly will finally learn the truth.

While covering a Texas bill for concealed weapons registration Molly sees Olin Crocker. Many years ago he worked as a sheriff and was in charge of investigating the alleged suicide of Vernon Cates. Molly believes that her father's death was murder and that Olin was paid off to look the other way. Molly also has a personal reason for loathing Crocker and it will be made clear further in the novel. This has motivated her to finally learn the truth once and for all.

The book has a second plotline involving Austin's homeless population. For the last few months Molly has been writing articles about the people she has met and trying to put an eye on the problem. One of the individuals she meets is Sara Jane Hurley who is better known as Cow Lady in the homeless circles. Cow Lady has kept to herself reciting Mother Goose rhymes. She spends the night under a deck and one day she learns overhears a plot to spray nerve gas in the Texas legislature before the concealed weapons bill is passed. Cow Lady does not know what to do and eventually tracks down Molly and asks for her help.

The reader gets to know a lot more about Molly than they did in THE RED SCREAM and UNDER THE BEETLE'S CELLAR. We learn why she became a writer, what drives her, and finally the truth about her father. Molly idolized her father for many years but in the end she will find out that he was just an ordinary person under extraordinary circumstances. Only time will tell how she will feel. The book's two storylines crowd each other and makes it feel like a tennis match. The nerve gas story seemed more like filler and the people involved do not seem real. It is good that the author brings social issues to her novel and that is what she should have focused on.

With an intriguing blend of Capitol mayhem and capital murder, Edgar Award winning author Mary Willis Walker returns to the scene of her last thriller, Austin, and to her previous protagonist, Molly Cates, an investigative journalist for "Lone Star Monthly.' Imaginatively conceived, All The Dead Lie Down offers seemingly parallel plots which eventually converge in a frightening yet exhilarating finish.

Sarah Jane Hurley, an alcoholic derelict known as Cow Lady because of the black and white spotted coat she wears, is huddled beneath the deck of an outdoor restaurant when she overhears a mephistophelian plot - the detonation of a poison gas bomb in the Texas State Capitol building. "Yessir," she hears. "...You're going to turn that Senate chamber into a gas chamber."

Cow Lady ignores this frightening revelation, seeking only drink with "the glow in her blood, the numbing buzz in her brain as it begins to work its magic."

Not missing a beat the rapidly pace narrative then switches to the legislature where Molly Cates is researching a story on the concealed handgun bill. Molly is as plucky and stubborn as ever, but misguided - obsessed with the belief that her father's death some 25 years ago was not a suicide as judged but murder.

Constantly reaffirming the links between an idealized father and herself - he was a writer, she is a writer; he loved the lake; she loved the lake - she has been consumed by her desire to solve what she believes was his murder. The result of her fixation has been the dissolution of her marriage and this distancing of her only child, Jo Beth, who has been raised by Aunt Harriet, her father's older sister.

Access to the Cates family archives eventually leads to unraveling the questions about her father's death. The answers, both unexpected and unwanted, force her to realize that her father was not the icon she believed him to be and enable a wiser Molly to say, "My father was grievously flawed. He is closer and dearer to me now than when I chose to believe him perfect."

Yet it was Molly's chance meeting with Cow Lady that irrevocably changed and endangered both women's lives. When a fellow street person wearing the trademark black and white coat is brutally murdered, Cow Lady realizes that the plotters know they were overheard and, once they realize they've killed the wrong woman, she will be next. Molly is the only person she can think of who might help her.

Unwisely responding alone, the journalist finds herself joining Cow Lady as the doomed prisoners of two avaricious sociopathic killers who would sell their sisters for a sou just as they've sold Cow Lady.

Thursting into overdrive the story takes a hariraising turn as a weakened Cow Lady and bludgeoned Molly try to escape execution style deaths and interment in Austin's city dump.

Mr. Willis' command of street patois adds authnticity to her tale, while her rich characterizations raise All The Dead Lie Down above conventional thriller level. Faces given to the homeless : Tin Can, a retarded woman with "baggy jeans rolled up on her stubby bowed legs" whose only companion is "Silky" a stray calico cat; and Lufkin, "his long, bony nose and thin red mouth just visible in the nest of his long black beard, streaked with gray," who always sharres his scrounged bounty.

Their portraits are vividly painted for us through Molly's eyes: "She glances at Sarah Jane and it occurs to her that this is where this woman lives all the time...inside this crack in the world where you become invisible, where the default mode is brutality and eventually a mean death." The plight of these people is memorable.

Ms. Willis has penned a seductive mix of family history and mystery - prime diversion on home ground, from the streets of El Paso to the plains of Lubbock (although Lubbockites may not care for the description of their fair city) to the shores of Lake Travis. Absorbing and suspenseful, All The Dead Lie Down is a first rate mystery thriller.

I bought this used, thinking it was first in a series by this author. Even though it wasn't part of a series, and since I haven't read anything by this author before, I loaned it to a friend. She said it was okay. I read it and enjoyed it, it was hard to put down. I have loaned it to another friend, to see if she likes it.

I thought this book was great. I found out about it from another author. She said it was good & it was.

Hard to put down. You want to keep going so that you can find out who the killer is.

very well written.

I really enjoyed Zero at the Bone. You never knew where the plot turns were going to take you. It is rare to find a mystery novel that leaves you guessing until the end. I found it a great read along with Mary Willis Walker's other books. I just wish she would write another one soon.

I admit, I might be getting too critical when it comes to mystery novels lately. But I have read so many that I start to know what a really good mystery novel is and which ones are not. "Zero At The Bone" was the first novel that I have read by Mrs. Walker. Don't get me wrong, the book wasn't bad at all, but the plot moved quite slowly and there was not much suspense. Most of the novel described in great detail the tasks and obligations that a zookeeper must go through. How to clean the cage, sweep the floor, feed the animals, take the snake out of his cage, and on and on. If you work at a zoo, you'll love this book I guarantee it! Although, the characters were well developed and likeable, I wouldn't put this book on my "must read list" at all. Not bad Mrs. Walker!

Brad Stonecipher

Walker does an excellent job with this book.

As you eneter Katherine's world it's crumbling away and then she gets notice that her father who she hasn't seen or heard from in year dies. She goes off to see him off and go through his extate. When she comes across something that doesn't seem right and this embarks her on a journey that will change her life.

Walker paints a powerful picture with her words. In one scene they come across a lion traped in a cage. You can actually see the lion and feel the cage and his imperfections with your hands. It will send chills up your spine.

This is her best book and the only one that stands on it's own. Her other books deal with continuing characters and are great, too.

Read. Enjoy. Then take a trip to a large zoo and enjoy the animals.

If you liked Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal with all there power you'll enjoy Mary Willis Walkers' work.

I don't usually write reviews, but I think buyers should be aware that this recording has little to do with Lamott's very good book, 'Bird by Bird'. These tapes are self-help tapes, like Julia Cameron's stuff. I was disappointed and a little bit annoyed. The box even says 'Writer's Audio Shop' on the front--very misleading. I say read the bird book and pass on these supposed 'word' lectures. Sorry Anne.

Listening to anne lamott lecture is like taking a refreshing cool bath on the hottest day of the year; it quenches the soul. Additionally, her wonderfully gritty voice doles out practical writing advice with sturdy handles, the kind you literally cannot get from any oridinary seminar. Much of this tape is subsumed within her bestselling book, Bird By Bird, yet there is plenty that is unique to Word By Word to make it well worth the price; not the least of which is hearing the poem which Anne's dog Sadie wrote to her, wherein Sadie ponders the question: 'Should she (the author) really be driving?' Hilarious and poignant as ever, Lamott mixes up wry asides with text from her writing manual, and makes everything difficult seem worth undertaking. All in all, a generous illumination and expansion of several classic Lamott topics; hearing her say it in her own words brings it crackling to life. Writing is hard work, but with Anne at your side, it's a shared journey.

2% writing advice, 98% self absorption and psycho-babble. If your primary interest is self help for the compulsive, addicted etc. - this is the book for you; if you are looking for writing advice try John Gardner.