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When crime reporter Molly Cates’s father died more than twenty-five years ago, the case was ruled a suicide, and Molly’s efforts to prove otherwise led to nothing but anguish and the breakup of her family. But now new information has come her way and she reopens the investigation–and a rush of old wounds–with a vengeance. Soon the personal becomes dangerously political as Molly’s search for the truth leads her from the stately halls of Texas government to the mean streets of Austin’s down-and-out–and ultimately to a moral dilemma she never could have anticipated.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.
Customer Reviews
Fast-paced thriller and Texas-size trouble. . ."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.
Parallel Plots
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.
Fathers are heroes to their daughters
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.
Turmoil in Texas
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.
A SEDUCTIVE MIX OF FAMILY HISTORY AND MYSTERY
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.
