Review: CHICKENFEED, Minette Walters

• File Size: 408 KB
• Print Length: 121 pages
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin (April 1, 2006)
• Publication Date: January 20, 2015
• Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00SGK1IS4

Synopsis (Amazon)

When Minette Walters was commissioned (along with several other writers) to produce a book in the Quick Read series, she came up with a novel called Chickenfeed, firmly in her chosen territory: the psychology of crime and criminals. The brief was to keep things fast-moving, with no unwieldy adjectives and (if possible) seduce into reading those who have either lost--or had never acquired--the habit. Ironically, Chickenfeed, despite its brevity, reads very much like Walters' customary fare: a violent crime is committed (offstage, as it were), but the concentration is on perpetrator and victim rather than a dogged police inspector putting the pieces together.

The subject is a true story: in 1920s East Sussex, the corpse of Elsie Cameron is discovered in a chicken run. The man found guilty of the crime, her fiancé Norman Thorne, was sentenced to death and hanged. At the time of his death, doubts were cast on the verdict, and it is very much Walters' concern to address those doubts here. We're given a fascinating and detailed study of two blighted lives: Norman, living under cramped conditions, is struggling against heavy odds to make a living as a chicken farmer. The unprepossessing Elsie, prickly and self obsessed, finds it difficult to get on with her family or her workmates, and is fired from a succession of jobs. Marriage to Norman is the one thing--she comes to believe--that will change her wretched life, but although she does her damnedest to get the reluctant Norman to marry her, she withholds sex, allowing Norman to undress her and touch her naked body, but forbidding any other sexual contact. Things grow worse, as Elsie's family (keen to rid themselves of her) join their daughter in pressing marriage on the increasingly reluctant Norman. Then he meets someone else... and Elsie disappears. 

My take

A quite lengthy novella. Based on a true case from 1924 when Norman Thorne was convicted of murdering his fiance Elsie Cameron.

To the end Norman swore that he had found Elsie dead, hanging in his shack. His conviction was based on the testimony of Sir Bernard Spilsbury.

Minette Walters has reconstructed evidence over their four year courtship when Elsie had tried to bring on the marriage by claiming she was pregnant. Norman always said she couldn't be and eventually the autopsy showed that she wasn't.

My rating: 4.3

I've also read
THE ICE HOUSE
4.7, THE TURN OF MIDNIGHT
4.4, THE DEVIL'S FEATHER

Review: THE LAST HOURS, Minette Walters

My Take:

The setting is Develish, Dorseteshire 1348. Sir Richard of Develish is off to Bradmayne, two days’ ride away to make final arrangements for the marriage of his 14 year old daughter Eleanor to Peter of Bradmayne.  Sir Richard is taking with him a dowry of gold and other goods. However Eleanor is resentful of the marriage.

While Sir Richard is away a message comes to Lady Anne at Develish that a pestilence has struck neighbouring villages and towns. News of the pestilence reaches Sir Richard in Bradmayne and he decides to ride home. But he is already too late, and becomes ill on the ride home. When he gets back to Develish Lady Anne has burnt the bridge across the moat that surrounds his castle, and she refuses to allow him entrance.

When Sir Richard left he took with him some of his most trusted men and Lady Anne has appointed another, Thaddeus Thurkell, to help her manage the estate. In the face of the pestilence she has brought all of the serfs into the grounds of the castle. As time passes they await news from outside that the pestilence has passed and inside the castle life becomes difficult and people become bored. Resentments run high although most believe Lady Anne has done the right thing. However her daughter Eleanor resents the fact that her mother would not let her father back into the castle and tries to stir up trouble  particularly for Thaddeus Thurkell.

The death of one of Thaddeus’s half brothers while he was supposed to be on guard duty leads to Thaddeus leaving the castle, taking five young serfs with him, ostensibly in search of food. Supplies in the castle are rapidly dwindling. Their journey leads to a better understanding of how the plague spreads.

An intriguing, long awaited, novel from Minette Walters, more historical than crime fiction.

At the end of the e-book is an extract from a sequel, to be published in October 2018.

My Rating: 4.6

Review: THE DEVIL'S FEATHER, Minette Walters

My contribution this week to the crime fiction alphabet is a book that I read some time ago but have never reviewed on this blog.

Published in 2005.

When five women are brutally murdered in Sierra Leone, Reuters journalist Connie Burns comes to believe that the culprit is a foreigner whom she recognises: someone she met, under a different name, in Kinshasa.

Two years later she recognises the same man in Iraq, again living under a different name. Voicing her suspicions to colleagues results in Connie being kidnapped for 3 days.
When she is released apparently unharmed, she refuses to speak about her ordeal and returns to England. The reader is never told explicitly what happened to her but we are left to deduce it from snippets. Seemingly small things now leave Connie subject to panic attacks.  She lives as a recluse in Devon but decides to keep investigating the man, and he comes after her.

I found this a difficult read. The story is told through emails and accounts given to others in interviews. As the reader I never felt included in direct disclosures and the events were never really narrated for my benefit.  There are two major stories intertwined and by the end I was impatient for it to finish. I felt as my brain had been exercised enough.

[ the "devil's feather" is a woman who stirs a man's interest without realizing it; the unwitting cause of sexual arousal. Connie's captor calls her 'feather'. Connie decides to use this to lure him to England and eliminate him. This puts all her friends and family in danger]

My rating was 4.4

Other books by Minette Walters
The Ice House (1991)
The Sculptress (1993)
The Scold's Bridle (1994)
The Dark Room (1995)
The Echo (1997)
The Breaker (1998)
Acid Row (2001)
The Shape of Snakes (2001)
Fox Evil (2002)
Disordered Minds (2003)
The Devil's Feather (2005)
The Chameleon's Shadow (2007)