This humorous, heartfelt and redemptive collection of short fiction from the #1 New York Times best-selling author of Beautiful Ruins explores moments when everything changes—for the better, worse and outrageous—as an unforgettable cast of characters question life and search for inspiration. In this riveting collection of stories from acclaimed author Jess Walter, a teenage girl tries to live up to the image of her beautiful, missing mother. An...

"Orphans Gig and Rye Dolan don't have a penny to their names. The brothers work grueling, odd jobs each day just to secure a meal, and spend nights sleeping wherever they can with other day laborers. Twenty-three-year-old Gig is a passionate union man, fighting for fair pay and calling out the corrupt employers who exploit the working class. Eager to emulate his older brother, Rye follows suit, though he can't quite muster Gig's passion for the cause....

"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins comes a lively, smart, and deliciously funny new novel in the vein of True Grit, about a reclusive journalist who is suddenly thrown into a wild, suspenseful journey to rescue his kidnappedgrandchildren"-- Provided by publisher. "Rhys Kinnick has gone off the grid. At Thanksgiving a few years back, a fed-up Rhys punched his conspiracy-theorist son-in-law in the mouth, chucked his smartphone...

"We Live in Water, the first collection of short fiction from New York Times bestselling author Jess Walter, is a suite of diverse, often comic stories about personal struggle and diminished dreams, all of them marked by the wry wit and generosity of spirit that has made him one of our most talked-about writers. In 'Thief,' a blue-collar worker turns unlikely detective to find out which of his kids is stealing from the family vacation fund. In 'We...

“This form has a special kind of magic, the ability to transport you quickly, intensely, to capture character, time, place, and story with immediacy,” writes guest editor Lisa Unger in her introduction. The transporting stories in this year’s The Best American Mystery and Suspense are populated by those who exist on the fringe of our society and want more than what life has dealt them: A haunted veteran turned career criminal is on the run....