The Devil’s Feather by Minette Walters
Like virtually every other right-minded lover of crime fiction I’m a fan of Minette Walters, but until recently The Devil’s Feather had escaped my attention. In the Devil’s Feather Walters goes global in a tale that transports us from war ravaged Sierra Leone via post-Saddam Iraq to deepest Dorset.



Journalist Connie Burns is working in Sierra Leone when her suspicions are aroused that the perpetrators of a series of rapes and murders are not, as the authorities claim, three young rebel soldiers but the British bodyguard of a diamond trader. When she encounters the same man in Iraq two years later using another name and attempts to expose him he takes a brutal and harrowing revenge that leaves her terrified and psychologically crushed.


Retreating to the refuge of a dilapidated Dorset farmhouse she befriends the solitary and misunderstood Jess Derbyshire, a strong-minded young woman who, like Connie, has secrets she’s not willing to reveal. Taking her inspiration from her new friend she refuses to be cowed by her experience. But what starts as a long-distance pursuit of her tormentor ends terrifyingly close to home and draws the two women together to share one last secret.


So what makes Walters so good at what she does? Well no-one could accuse her of writing ‘cosy’ crime. This is a book that faces up to real issues while managing to avoid the trap of preaching to the reader. And one of the things I most admire about her is her ability to draw convincing characters in her depictions of modern rural Britain without resorting to stereotype: a skill that is very evident in this book. But I’m an old fashioned girl at heart and the thing I enjoy most in my crime fiction reading is the challenge of solving a well constructed mystery and that Walters’ plots never fail to deliver.



It’s difficult to become bored with Walters’ books. She famously doesn’t use series characters, writing each book as a stand-alone. I’ll certainly be adding her other titles that I haven’t read to my ‘To Read’ list And if you missed out on The Devil’s Feather when it was first published don’t leave it too long…


I’m currently reading an Ian Rankin Rebus omnibus…bit of a mistake really, no not the content but the weight of a three-novels-in-one book. Not easy bed-time reading – heavy weight! I’ll let you know what I think though.

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One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
One Good Turn is Whitbread prize winning author Kate Atkinson’s second venture into crime fiction.



This time thanks to his thespian girlfriend Julia’s involvement in a decidedly mediocre production, police inspector turned private detective, Jackson Brodie finds himself in Edinburgh during the Festival. There he witnesses cosy mystery writer Martin Canning (AKA Alex Blake) save a man from being clubbed to death in a road rage incident and offers the unlikely hero his support.


The reader (and Brodie) are drawn inexorably into the interconnected lives of Gloria Hatter, faithful wife of Graham a Property tycoon of questionable ethics, Russian dominatrix Tatiana and washed-up comedian Richard Moat. When Brodie spots a dead woman floating in the Forth his failed attempt to retrieve her body provokes both the suspicion and the interest of newly promoted DI Louise Monroe and then his problems really begin.


One Good Turn is cleverly structured and deftly written. Stephen King described the mysteries at the heart of Atkinson’s first Jackson Brodie novel Case Histories as, ‘nesting like Russian dolls.’ I can’t help wondering whether the appearance of the Russian Matryoshka dolls throughout One Good Turn is a whimsical reference to his comments.


The book opens with a bang (literally) but after that the pace builds gradually as we begin to make sense of the characters’ interweaving lives. Perhaps lovers of the traditional whodunit or police procedural might find One Good Turn’s structure and the depth of the characterisation a source of frustration. But for me it’s a cracking good mystery that keeps the twists and turns coming to the very last sentence. It’s subtitled, ‘A Jolly Murder Mystery’ and it manages to deliver on its promise while remaining both credible and entertaining.



If you haven’t yet discovered Jackson Brodie put Kate Atkinson on your ‘To Read List’ now. If you do I’ll rest easy in the knowledge that I’ve done my one good turn for the day.


I’m now reading ‘The Devil’s Feather’. If you haven’t read it yet or even haven’t yet discovered it’s award winning author Minette Walters check back here soon and I’ll let you know whether you should add it to your reading list.

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Death on the Downs by Simon Brett
I have something in common with Carole Sneddon the protagonist of Death on the Downs: I’ve just made an unexpected find. Thankfully my discovery of Simon Brett was decidedly more pleasurable than Carole’s discovery of a complete human skeleton rammed into two old fertiliser sacks and stashed in a dilapidated barn high on the South Downs. Quite how I could have failed previously to discover a crime writer whose list of published works (not all crime) are now numbered in the eighties is a mystery in itself.



Death on the Downs is the second book in the Fethering Mysteries series. The books feature the redoubtable Carole, a retired civil servant with a healthy respect for rules and regulations but an unsettling talent for finding herself involved in murder enquiries. In the long established tradition of odd couple detectives her confederate in crime-busting is her friend and next door neighbour Jude, a woman of decidedly less conventional tastes more at home with the regulation of chakras than observing social niceties.


Jude’s exploitation of her contacts in the world of alternative therapies reveal a web of unseemly secrets in the Sussex village of Weldisham. While Carole’s persistent questioning of the unsettlingly sympathetic Sergeant Bayliss coupled with her renewal of old contacts in the Home Office suggest the solution to the mystery of the body in the barn may lie in the distinctly more exotic location of Kuala Lumpur.


Well plotted and with pleasingly drawn (though not always comfortable) characters the denouement of Death on the Downs left me rooting for Brett’s Burberry clad heroine in a way that even authors of suspense laden thrillers would be proud to achieve. Peppered with lightly spiced insights into middle England but light on blood drenched torsos Brett’s writing is a satisfying lesson in how to deliver a classic British mystery for the 21st century.



So now I’ve finally found him Simon Brett’s other mysteries will be joining my ‘To Read’ list: ideal companions for a fireside read on a snowy winter’s evening.


I’m currently reading Kate Atkinson’s ‘One Good Turn’. If you want to find out whether Whitbread prize winning author Atkinson’s ventures into the world of crime make it onto my ‘To Read’ list pop by my blog again some time soon. Follow me on Twitter and I’ll let you know when I’ve reviewed her book.



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