- Hardcover: 357 pages
- Publisher: Macmillan Books Ltd.; 1st. Edition edition (8 Sep 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1405050985
- ISBN-13: 978-1405050982
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.2 x 4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 586,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Devil's Feather
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More About the Author
Product Description
Barry Forshaw
Sometimes, an author is obliged to change pace when their usual territory is becoming over-farmed – not least by themselves. And at first glance, The Devil’s Feather would appear to represent a radical new direction for Minette Walters. But -- wait a minute -- why would Walters need to dip into a new genre of novel? After all, she is now unquestionably in the upper echelons of British crime queens, quite as successful as P D James and Ruth Rendell at mining darker psychological territory, with (in her case) a strong sociological underpinning. Such books as Acid Row and Fox Evil have been bitter pictures of Britain as much as they have been crime novels. The Devil’s Feather is more ambitious than any of her preceding work, notably in the massive international canvas (including a war-torn country) that is the novel's backdrop.
Five women have been savagely killed in the Sierra Leone conflict. Connie Burns is a correspondent for Reuters who asks awkward questions about the arrest of three young soldiers accused of the crime. Their forced confessions (after savage beatings) count for little in the middle of the Civil War, and Connie's theory -- that the murders were committed by a foreigner indulging his own sanguinary fantasies in the middle of a war -- proves to be very dangerous for her. Her attempts to track the killer down bring catastrophe on her own head, and she is forced to escape, going to ground in Dorset and dealing with the psychic scars she has been left with. It is, of course, inevitable that she will be tracked down even in the safety of the English countryside by her implacable opponent.
As the foregoing conveys, this is very different territory from that which Walters has made her own, but she proves equally adept at the International blockbuster thriller as at any of her more tightly focused British novels. It goes without saying that the character portrayal (notably of the terrified Connie) is an on-the-nail as ever, and the considerable tension engendered by The Devil’s Feather may glean a whole new legion of readers for Walters. --Barry Forshaw
The Indepedent
..takes the genre to a deeper level..
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Another disappointment from Minette,
By
This review is from: The Devil's Feather (Paperback)
When Minette Walters first burst onto the scene in the early 'Nineties, she seemed like a breath of fresh air. Her first three books, especially 'The Sculptress', were excellent and her appealing, distinctive style promised much for the future. However, it seems that as her fame and her sales increased, the quality of her writing took a bit of a nosedive. Book number four, 'The Dark Room' was pretty good if rather unconvincing, but 'The Echo' was disappointing and 'The Breaker' absolutely awful. Since then, she has never recovered her early form, and her subsequent books have ranged from passable ('Disordered Minds') to mind-numbingly abysmal ('Acid Row').
'The Devil's Feather' is one of the passable ones, although the beginning seemed to promise more. The book wastes no time in getting to the heart of the story; within forty pages, journalist Connie Burns has unmasked a serial killer (but no one believes her), been kidnapped and abused by him and finally fled to a remote house in the wilds of Dorset to escape him. Of course, we know the killer will eventually come looking for her, and Walters cranks up the tension slowly but fairly satisfyingly. Unfortunately, the long-awaited climax occurs 150 pages from the end of the book, leaving the remainder to clear up a not-terribly-interesting subplot, and the confrontation itself is only described to us in retrospect, thus robbing it of any tension since we immediately know who has survived the encounter. There are also some rather unconvincing shifts in personality and a lot of half-baked psychology which the characters spout to explain their unbelievable actions. The other problem I have with this book, as with all of Minette Walters' recent books, is the amount of repetition in her work. Character types, themes and personal concerns are used over and over again. There's always a tough independent female who can't bear to show her vulnerable side, the square-jawed professional male who has slept with every woman in a fifty mile radius, the obnoxious introvert who is really sensitive and warm-hearted under that protective shell ... they're all here, as they are in practically everything else she's ever written. The usual hobbyhorses are here, too: the superiority of rural to urban life, dogs (in this book she tries - and spectacularly fails - to convince us the demonic Bull Mastiff is a sweet and loveable breed) and smoking (I'm a smoker myself, but even I can't sympathise with the way her characters are always deliberately blowing smoke in non-smokers' faces). Also as usual, the whole book is shot through with conservative, middle-class values, however much the author tries to convince us she's a forward-thinking liberal. Her treatment of working-class characters has always been offensive, and no matter how hard she pretends to disapprove of snobbery, she exhibits all the signs herself. The way she seems to applaud violent revenge and vigilantism in this book is particularly disturbing. Perhaps the most surprising example of her repeating herself is the way in which this book is reminiscent of 'The Ice House' in many ways. Isolated females, unfriendly and suspicious villagers, concealed corpses, the mystery surrounding the fate of the central villain ... there are many similarities but I don't want to go into too much detail and spoil the novel for anyone. I can only hope that Minette Walters takes a break before writing her next book, and tries to rediscover the form which brought her to public attention in the first place. As things stand right now, her formula is wearing very thin.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Doesn't really work,
By
This review is from: The Devil's Feather (Paperback)
I have to say I was absolutely riveted over the first 30 pages or so. The fate of a war correspondent on the trail of a serial killer - what serious thriller-aficionado would not perk up here? Unfortunately, the whole story collapses like a badly made soufflé. Suddenly our heroine is in deep hiding in the countryside where - ever so conveniently - a spooky house, a strange female recluse and a desirable (hm..) doctor, oh and a pack of dangerous dogs are populating her increasingly uninteresting fate. Somehow the juxtapsoition of Baghdad and an over-complicated Dorset family saga don't work at all. Page by page, one loses interest. The end, when it comes really isn't fascinating, explains little, and seems totally implausible.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very disappointing,
By CSD (Chester-le-Street, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Devil's Feather (Paperback)
I have read all of Minette Walters books and enjoyed them all to varying degrees. The Devil's Feather, however, was not enjoyable at all and is the worst book she has written. It starts off quite well but then becomes incredibly slow and boring. The characters are unrealistic and unlikeable, towards the end of the book I really didn't care who lived or died. It's a real page turner, only in that I skim read the last half of the book in a desperate attempt to get it finished. I wish I had read some of the other negative reviews before buying this book as they are spot on.
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