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Summary: Already read the recommended John Brady books
Review: (Hi guys--just checking this out since it's here now.) But, I wanted to tell you "thank you" for the John Brady recommendations. However, I've already read them. They are pefect for long wet/rainy/cloudy/windy weekends.
Rating:
Summary: Already read the recommended John Brady books
Review: (Hi guys--just checking this out since it's here now.) But, I wanted to tell you "thank you" for the John Brady recommendations. However, I've already read them. They are pefect for long wet/rainy/cloudy/windy weekends.
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Summary: Another good read from Walters
Review: A satisfying psychological mystery from one of the best practitioners in the field, but not up to the level of The Ice House or The Sculptress. It was interesting and readable from the first page to the last; however, some of Walter's insights into the main characters were not as astute as I've come to expect of her. Although many of her comments about how memory and amnesia work were accurate, there were aspects of the main character's symptoms that did not work. I can't say more without revealing plot twists. Just read and enjoy with a small grain of salt.
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Summary: Another one of Minette's good books!
Review: A very very interesting book that catches you from the first page to the end of the book.A book that can take you from a very unpredictable beginning to a very intersting story and as usual a happy ending,except for the tragedies happened in the story. The main character being Jinx Kingsly,suffering from amnesia after her fiancee decided to marry her best friend and her car crashed which seemed to be a suicide attempt. For Jinx that was hard to believe but she couldn't remember what actually happened and couldn't contribute anything to the investigations.She was the prime suspect when the dead bodies of Jinx's fiance and his new girlfriend were found in middle of the forest. The story goes on an attempt to bring back Jinx's memory by her doctor and the attempts of the detectives to find out who killed them. Involves many people and descibes the charcters of the people in the story, a look at human nature and the different kinds og people in the world. Happy Reading!
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Summary: A baffling gripping mistery
Review: An enveloping murder mistery with psychological streaks which grows and grips as one advaces into the final chapters. Features plenty of potencial perpretrators and misleading police theories. It makes think all the time and ends with an unexpected revelation. A very deeply exploitation of Jinx character. To read it slowly with lot of atention so as not to get lost. The only weakness is that sometimes it gets pretty confusing with dates and weeks
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Summary: An atmospheric psychological thriller
Review: An established star in the firmament of dark psychological suspense, British author Walters has won numerous awards ('The Ice House,' 'The Sculptress,' 'The Scold's Bridle'). This 1996 thriller opens with Jinx Kingsley, fashion photographer and only daughter of self-made millionaire Adam Kingsley, hospitalized and amnesiac after a horrific car accident. A suicide attempt is suspected, particularly since she was earlier found unconscious in her garage with the car running - apparently despondent because her fiance had absconded with her best friend.
Only Jinx didn't like her fiance all that well. She was on the verge of breaking up with him herself, even claims she had done so, although the accident came after a week at her parents', making wedding plans. Then two bodies, a man and woman, are discovered. And police discover Jinx's first husand was murdered.
Meanwhile Jinx's father has had her moved to a sanitarium where she is having a strong effect on her doctor, Alan Protheroe. By turns prickly, manipulative and vulnerable, Jinx becomes a suspect. As does her father, a forceful, unseen presence whose ruthlessness is legend.
Walters keeps the sands of perception shifting. In common with the other characters, the reader's view of Jinx is ambiguous. Her memory returns (or seems to) in painful flashes as the police piece together a skewed picture of greed, betrayal and sexual obsession. An aura of mystery and menace shrouds Jinx's dysfunctional family, suspicion corroding the bonds between them. Walter's writing is literate, character driven and atmospheric, making comparisons - and favorable ones at that - with Ruth Rendell inevitable.
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Summary: Fascinating
Review: As a reader of Anne Perry, I was looking for a new author to read, and I was enchanted to find The Dark Room by Minette Walters. Ms.Walters weaves a wonderful tale full of twists and turns. Additionally, she makes you feel for her main character while you guess whether or not she is guilty of murder. I particulary enjoyed the fact that romance was not a central point of the book. If you are looking for a fascinating book, buy The Dark Room by Minette Walters.
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Summary: Another riveting psychological murder mystery from Walters.
Review: As usual, Walters keeps the reader teetering from one theory to another throughout the tale. And also as usual, she draws complex and interesting characters. However, the plot and subject matter are more mundane than some of her other works, though Walters is never ordinary or dull. Jinx, the protagonist, brings the reader with her as she recovers slowly from her amnesia, trying to solve the mysteries of her missing memories, her apparent suicide attempts, and her friend and fiance's disappearance. Jinx, and the reader with her, is not at all sure who to love, like, trust, fear, or hate - including Jinx herself. This is an excellent book, though not Walters' best. Fascinating foreshadowings fail to develop in a satisfying way, and the final ending is a little lackluster. But, all in all, still a great read.
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Summary: Dark Room (and Disturbing)
Review: Following the example set in "The Sculptress," Ms. Walters has crafted yet another thriller that leaves the question in your mind: did they nab the right person? Without the cut-and-dry ending of the typical mystery, Ms. Walters lends a markedly modern flavor to this genre by suggesting widespread corruption throughout our institutions, and therefore, the morality of ourselves and others.
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Summary: Clever psychological mystery writer falters with her story.
Review: Having read THE SCULPTRESS, I found this effort by Walters less satisfying. While the character of Jinx is fascinating and full of possibilities, and the perspectives of her therapist and various policepersons is cleverly depicted, with all its intricacies Walters comes up with a resolution that reveals nothing much, and a journey for Jinx that is sentimental in its shallowness. Walters is superb in her construction, in leading her reader - me at least - up all sorts of alleyways of possibilities, into all kinds of corners of personality. But it does not, finally, add up to anything. Which is what I expect from the best of our mystery writers: the P.D. James's, Mosleys, etc. This effort, so dependent on psychological intricacies, demands a resolution that brings insight, that challenges our presumptions. Here, for Walters, none of that is accomplished.
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