Walker, Mary Willis Books

Under the Beetle's Cellar

Mary Willis Walker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The author and heroine of The Red  Scream return in a novel so terrifying, so  filled with squirming suspense, it's bound for the  bestseller lists. When Kirkus  Reviews greeted Mary Willis Walker's last book,  The Red Scream, with "welcome  to the big time," they weren't kidding. That  novel established Walker as an author with  "the kind of clout that sets publishers' mouths  watering" (The Philadelphia  Inquirer). And now she has done it again, with an  unforgettable tale ripped from the headlines and  more terrifying than our worst nightmares. Kidnapped  by a cult of religious fanatics, an Austin school  bus driver and eleven of his young charges have  been held underground at the group's highly  fortified compound for forty-six days. While a team of  federal negotiators begins to lose all hope of  rescuing the hostages, crime reporter Molly Cates sets  outto discover everything she can about the cult's  iron-willed leader, Samuel Mordecai. And as  the clock ticks inexorably, she takes the role of  Clarisse Starling opposite Mordecai's Hannibal Lecter,  engaging in a psychological confrontation as  harrowing as any in The Silence Of  The Lambs. Tough, terrifying, and relentlessly  heart-wrenching, this is a novel whose images no reader will  ever forget.

All the Dead Lie Down

Mary Willis Walker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Quotations from Mother Goose and Macbeth (as well as the Emily Dickinson snippet of the title) provide the chapter headings in this engaging novel of suspense. The apparent peculiarity of such juxtaposition brings home the brutality of those childhood rhymes and the dangers of obsession and revenge. Both serve Mary Willis Walker's purpose well in setting up this tightly constructed mystery in which investigative journalist Molly Cates's own obsession with her father's untimely death from 30 years before gets mixed up in a current and far more dangerous scheme to release chemical gases into the Senate chamber of the Texas Capitol. The two plots, the first a traditional mystery, the second more a tale of suspense, are unconnected except for Cates's involvement; she is obviously central to one and initially only tangential to the other. Such a device would have proved unwieldy in less skillful hands, but in Walker's case the disparate strands are brought together beautifully, and Cates has a suitable sense of her own fallibility and the difficulty of harboring hate for the better part of a generation.

Walker's previous three novels have won six mystery-writers awards among them. All the Dead Lie Down is solid enough to continue the tradition set by the others. Within it there is much to relish: sensitive consideration of homelessness, thought-provoking questions about gun control, and a wry appreciation for the charm and arrogance of the Lone Star State and its citizens ("Texans do not scrimp on stars."). Indeed, Walker's sense of place--from Lubbock's dust and dry desolation to Austin's trendiness and political maneuvering--is sure and confident. There are moments when the worst of the perpetrators of the chemical weapons scare is portrayed simplistically, but this is more than made up for by the complexity of the other characters: the vagrants who discover the danger as well as the ghosts, both past and present, who haunt Molly in her investigations of her father's past. An excellent read, for even the most jaded of mystery lovers.

The Red Scream

Mary Willis Walker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

I JUST LOVE MOLLY CATES!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

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!

Editorial Review:

In this 1995 winner of the Edgar Award for best mystery novel, crime reporter Molly Cates has chronicled the exploits of Louie Bronk, a brutal serial killer scheduled for execution, for her first book. With his execution just a few days away, Molly decides to write the closing chapter on her disturbing relationship with the man known as the Texas Scalper. Strangely, both her boss and the husband of the woman whose murder got Bronk the death penalty pressure her to back off the story. When she receives a chilling anonymous letter and another body is found, she begins to suspect that Bronk is not the killer at all. Her quest for the truth, she discovers, not only discredits her work, but places her own life on the line.

Zero at the Bone

Mary Willis Walker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Suspenseful 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful.

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.

Editorial Review:

Katherine Driscoll is just three weeks away from disaster: foreclosure on her home and business, even the sale of her beloved dog.  She has no hope of raising the $91,000 she so desperately needs--until the father she hasn't seen for thirty years writes to her, offering her enough money to solve her problems...if she will do one thing in return.

But Katherine may never learn what that is.  When she arrives in Austin, she is hours too late: her father has died in a bizarre accident.  As she sifts through the cryptic notes he left behind, she finds herself caught up in terrible family secrets--and a deadly illicit trade.  The more she learns, the more determined she becomes to prove her father's death was no accident.  In doing so, Katherine will make a bitter enemy--one desperate enough to kill...and perhaps, kill again.