book review
Jul. 30th, 2006 08:36![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
piranhaminette walters -- disordered minds
howard stamp was convicted of brutally murdering his grandmother more than 30 years ago, and committed suicide in prison. councillor george gardener who lives in howard's old neighbourhood, believes that the somewhat retarded howard was railroaded, and wants to clear his name. jonathan hughes is an anthropologist who has included stamp in his book about miscarriages of justice, and whose agent thinks there's money to be made from a book concentrating on howard's case. despite a rocky start to their relationship gardener and hughes end up working together to find the true killer.
while i can't say i ever feel good after finishing one of minette walters' psychological crime novels, they always make me think. which is pretty extraordinary for a crime novel. walters mines some of the darkest reaches of the human psyche, but her characters don't seem particularly bizarre; in fact they usually seem perfectly ordinary to me.
the plotting is, as usual -- or even more so than usual -- extremely well done. the reader is actually told a lot, and knows a lot more than any individual character, but never too much, and as so often, i really enjoyed trying to work out what happened for myself. the style is new; there are book excerpts, police reports, newspaper articles, emails, and flashbacks interspersed with the narrative. the psychology of the investigating characters is given a prime place -- and here's where i am having issues. while i don't mind the idea, the approach seemed heavy-handed, and then it transpires that jonathon's neuroses are almost magically healed by extended exposure to the spunky miracle that is george ... umm, no thanks. also, minette walters is probably famous enough for her editors to hold back now -- please don't. this book needed a lot more cutting and polishing than it got.
still. i'd read it again.
howard stamp was convicted of brutally murdering his grandmother more than 30 years ago, and committed suicide in prison. councillor george gardener who lives in howard's old neighbourhood, believes that the somewhat retarded howard was railroaded, and wants to clear his name. jonathan hughes is an anthropologist who has included stamp in his book about miscarriages of justice, and whose agent thinks there's money to be made from a book concentrating on howard's case. despite a rocky start to their relationship gardener and hughes end up working together to find the true killer.
while i can't say i ever feel good after finishing one of minette walters' psychological crime novels, they always make me think. which is pretty extraordinary for a crime novel. walters mines some of the darkest reaches of the human psyche, but her characters don't seem particularly bizarre; in fact they usually seem perfectly ordinary to me.
the plotting is, as usual -- or even more so than usual -- extremely well done. the reader is actually told a lot, and knows a lot more than any individual character, but never too much, and as so often, i really enjoyed trying to work out what happened for myself. the style is new; there are book excerpts, police reports, newspaper articles, emails, and flashbacks interspersed with the narrative. the psychology of the investigating characters is given a prime place -- and here's where i am having issues. while i don't mind the idea, the approach seemed heavy-handed, and then it transpires that jonathon's neuroses are almost magically healed by extended exposure to the spunky miracle that is george ... umm, no thanks. also, minette walters is probably famous enough for her editors to hold back now -- please don't. this book needed a lot more cutting and polishing than it got.
still. i'd read it again.
no subject
on 2006-07-30 16:55 (UTC)no subject
on 2006-07-30 17:10 (UTC)her books are not light reading; they all deal with very disturbed people, and i think that puts them in a special place not comparable with most mysteries. i have to be in the right mood to tackle this sort of thing; it's definitely not "entertainment".
no subject
on 2006-07-31 10:46 (UTC)I felt that much of the credit for Jonathan's change went to his having passed through the eye of the needle: i.e. his nervous breakdown. Certainly George was instrumental in his recovery, but with the breakdown it did not to me seem quite so heavy handed (though it *was* pretty durned fast).
I was also pleased that Walters did not feel obliged to insert romantic interest between Jonathan and George: the book didn't need it and it would have been too pat.