Minette Walters

Minette Walters' earliest connection with the mystery genre may be her education at Godolphin -- the same boarding school that Agatha Christie had attended before her. She studied modern languages at the University of Durham. For a number of years she worked for a publisher as an editor of romantic fiction titles. She also wrote novelettes of 35,000 to 40,000 words in her spare time.

In 1977 she became a full-time writer. At first she wrote short stories and romance novels because she knew they would sell easily. It was not until she was 47, married, and had two children at school full-time, that she was able to pursue her main aim -- to write crime novels.

Walters is a "prison visitor" at Winchester Prison where she talks to inmates. She says that she does so solely because she "enjoys it" and not to gather material for her books, which she emphasizes are "fantasies" not meant to reflect the realities of crime and detection. But the knowledge she has gained of how ordinary people can do terrible things to one another has obviously contributed to the depth and realism of her novels. In a country where 75% of murders are domestic, her books focus on domestic murders and the "seething discontent under the respectable facade" of dysfunctional families that can erupt into murder. In her words, "a dysfunctional family is a dangerous family."

Her first mystery novel was The Ice House (1992) and it was a brilliant first effort. The story is set at Streech Grange, where three women live in virtual seclusion, shunned by most of the villagers who believe that the owner, Phoebe Maybury, got away with murder when her husband "disappeared" ten years ago. Furthermore, local gossip reports that the three friends are lesbians and/or witches. When the decomposing body of an unidentifiable man is discovered in their ice house, Inspectors Walsh and McLoughlin, both very hostile to the women, come to investigate. Is the body that of the missing husband? Whoever it is, was he murdered? And if so, by who?

While the novel's setting resembles that of a traditional British "cozy" it does not belong in that category. The plot is much more complex than most cozies. The sexual element is far more intense than that of any cozy, although there is nothing at all pornographic about it. This is a powerful novel in which ferocious passions seethe just beneath a proper surface.

The second Walters novel I read was The Scold's Bridle (19). This novel presents a perverse twist on the traditional English village mystery -- complete with snoopy neighbors and skeleton's in everyone's closets. It tells the story of Mathilda Gillespie, a much-disliked resident of the English village of Fontwell, who is found dead in her bathtub with her wrists slit and a "scold's bridle" -- a medieval torture instrument -- locked on her head. Is it suicide or murder? Mathilda's diaries reveal a previously unsuspected history of child abuse.

Like all of Walters' novels, The Scold's Bridle provides a great deal of insight into her characters and their possible motives. The resolution of one of her novels is seldomn what you expect from a mystery novel. It is more than just a question of whodunnit or how it was done -- neither of which is especially hard to figure out in this novel. In this novels denouement, an abrupt twist reveals much that you have read about Mathilda and those around her in an entirely new light.

The third of her novels that I read was The Shape of Snakes (2002). The protagonist of the story is Mrs. Ranelagh, who had twenty years before found her neighbor "Mad Annie" Butts dying in a gutter. The police took little interest in the fate of a Black women they regarded as "crazy" (she suffered from Tourette’s syndrome) and quickly decided that Annie’s death was due to a drunken accident. Mrs. Ranelagh, however, was convinced that Annie was murdered. When she tried to tell the police of her suspicions, the investigating officer conspired with her husband, mother, and neighbors to write her off as a neurotic with a persecution complex. She has spent most of the intervening years living in Hong Kong, but now she's back and she intends to learn the truth and maybe get some payback.

This is Minette Walters writing, so it isn’t simply a cold case investigation. For one thing, the reader can’t be certain of Mrs. Ranelagh's motivations – why is she so committed to learning the truth and what secret is she concealing herself? As she confronts her old neighbors, one by one, we get to know each in greater depth than the typical mystery novel suspects. Some are vicious, violent racists and some others just appear to be. All, including her husband, have secrets that give them powerful reasons to conceal what they know about the events leading to Miss Butts' death. In the end, she uncovers painful truths, not only about her neighbors and her family, but about herself as well and the murderer, while revealed, proves to have been only one of the many people who actually contributed to poor Annie’s demise. This is a great read, absorbingly written and with a new twist or puzzle every few pages. It is a sad, even emotionally distressing, tale and its conclusion, while satisfactory, is not a happy one.