Wednesday 20 May 2015

Book ~ "Walt" (2014) Russell Wangersky

From Goodreads ~ From critically acclaimed author Russell Wangersky, comes a dark, psychological thriller about a man named Walt, a grocery store cleaner who collects the shopping lists people leave in the store and discard without thought. In his fifties, abandoned, he says, by his now-missing wife Mary, Walt is pursued by police detectives unsatisfied with the answers he's given about her disappearance.

Almost invisible to the people who pass him every day, the grocery lists he collects, written on everything from cancelled cheques to mortgage statements to office stationary, give him a personal hold over those who both ignore him and unwittingly disclose facets of their lives to him.

When a new cold case squad is formed in St. John's to look into Mary's disappearance, the detectives begin to realize that Walt may be involved in more than just his wife's disappearance.

Set in modern-day Newfoundland, after reading Walt, you'll be sure to never let your shopping list fall to the floor ever again.

Walt is a cleaner in a grocery store in St. John's, NF.  Because of his job, he has developed a strange collection over the years... the grocery lists that people discard after they have finished shopping.  Many of the lists reveal a lot of information about the person, even their address when it's written on the back of an old envelope.

Walt forms attachments in his mind with these people and imagines (and then tells us) who and what the person is.  As a cleaner, no one notices him and he is able to remain invisible.  Some people he follows around and watches them outside their windows and even enters their homes.

In the meantime, Walt's wife, Mary, had left him.  The police, though, think otherwise and continually harass him to get him to confess to whatever he did with her.

This is the first book I've read by this author and I enjoyed it.  It was weird and strange, just like Walt.  It was written in first person as if Walt is talking to us ... analyzing the shopping lists and telling us about his life and his theories.  As a head's up, there is swearing.

I'd recommend this if you are looking for a mystery story that is a bit different.

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