We Live in Water, the first collection of short fiction fromNew York Timesbest-selling 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 Live in Water", a lawyer returns to a corrupt North Idaho town to find the father who disappeared 30 years earlier. In "Anything Helps", a homeless man has to "go to cardboard" to raise enough money to buy his son the new Harry Potter book. In "Virgo", a local newspaper editor tries to get back at his superstitious ex-girlfriend by screwing with her horoscope. And the collection's final story transforms slyly from a portrait of Walter's hometown into a moving contemplation of our times.