Krishna
This is my first and only Minette Walters and so, if I am way off on this one, my advance apologies to any Minette Walters fans out there, who may come across this blog entry.
My impression is this : It has all the ingredients of a British murder mystery and yet, for some reasons, fails to impress.
The story is typical : There is this lady called Kate Sumner who is eminently despicable and has antagonized almost everyone she has met, and unsurprisingly, is found murdered. The suspects including Steven Harding, an aspiring actor and stud, Kate’s husband William Sumner, Steve’s friend Tony Bridges and her girlfriend Bibi. Kate’s child Hanna is found abandoned.
Police inspector Nick Ingram has to work hard to find the killer and the motive among the thousands of motives. Now, the drama is not as powerful as Anne Perry’s nor is the brooding Nick as powerfully portrayed as William Monk of Perry.
The denouement is simply told, without the rewarding experience in the tradition of Christie, ‘How was the murderer found out?’. I am not saying that everything has to be like Agatha Christie or even Anne Perry, but then, once you have worked hard to unravel the mystery in your mind as it flows along, you would expect a little bit of a dazzle and hoopla when you discover who the real killer is, would you not?
Based on my own expectations and the result, I cannot give it more than a 3/10
—- Krishna