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The Sculptress
 
 

The Sculptress [Kindle Edition]

Minette Walters
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

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Product Description

Review

"A dark, superbly plotted tale guaranteed to keep readers up most of the night."--"The Denver Post"
 
"Creepy but compulsive . . . hard to put down."--"The New York Times Book Review""" "Riveting."--"The Kansas City Star" "A shocker of a second novel."--"Detroit Free Press" "Intricate, intriguing, and tantalizingly ambiguous . . . Ratifies [Minette Walters's emergence into the front ranks of today's mystery writers."--"The San Diego Union-Tribune"

Product Description

‘It was a slaughterhouse, the most horrific scene I have ever witnessed... Olive Martin is a dangerous woman. I advise you to be extremely wary in your dealings with her.’ The facts of the case were simple: Olive Martin had pleaded guilty to killing and dismembering her sister and mother, earning herself the chilling nickname ‘The Sculptress’. This much journalist Rosalind Leigh knew before her first meeting with Olive, currently serving a life sentence. How could Roz have foreseen that the encounter was destined to change her life – for ever? ‘This is one of my books of the year’ Sunday Times ‘A devastating effective novel’ Observer ‘Awesomely accomplished . . . The plot twists and grips, like an octopus' Daily Telegraph

Product details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 711 KB
  • Print Length: 468 pages
  • Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0330330373
  • Publisher: Pan Books; 12 edition (1 Oct 2010)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B0044KLPJW
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #26,076 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
A worthwhile read 8 Jan 2007
By J.E.T
Format:Paperback
To me this book was a liitle slow-starting as it took a few chapters to really get me hooked. Once the scene was set, however, I found myself enthralled by the many twists and turns. It stands apart from many of this genre by the way the culprit was not directly obvious- in fact, it kept me guessing until the final few pages which was a rather refreshing feature.

This was the first novel I read of Walters and I liked it so much I have already bought my second. I found it easy to dip in and out of with a simple enough plot that you don't have to keep turning back constantly to check who the charcters are. Altogether, a very good first-read.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful
By Lawyeraau HALL OF FAME TOP 100 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
This is an intriguing, well written mystery which garnered the 1994 Edgar Award for best novel of the year for British writer, Minette Walters, who has written quite a number of excellent books. She is a writer in the tradition of that other great British novelist, Ruth Rendell, known also as Barbara Vine. The comparison by those who are familiar with the works of both Ms. Walters and Ms. Rendell is inescapable.

This book revolves around two main stories that become by necessity intertwined. One is that of a morbidly obese, young woman, Olive Martin, who is imprisoned for the brutal and grisly murders of her mother, Gwen, and beautiful, younger sister, Amber, whose butchered bodies shocked even the most jaded of folks. On the eve of trial, Olive made a full confession to the crime and received a prison sentence of not less than twenty-five years for her butchery. Known in prison as "The Sculptress", she passes the time making miniature, carved, wax images, a delicate and sensitive pastime for one with a reputation for such primal savagery.

Enter Rosalind "Roz" Leigh, a thirties something author suffering from writer's block, who accepts a commission to write about the Olive Martin case. After meeting Olive, she becomes intrigued by her, finding her to be other than what she had expected, and a symbiotic relationship develops between the two. As she delves into the facts of the murder case, and as her interviews with Olive reveal, all is not quite what it seems. The more that Roz sorts through the facts and the more people that she interviews who were in some way associated with the Martin family, the more she becomes convinced that a miscarriage of justice has occurred and that the wrong person is paying a horrific price for the grisly murders of Gwen and Amber.

Someone, however, does not wish her to dig too deeply. With the aid of a former police sergeant, Hal Hawksley, an attractive, though conflicted, young man who is now her new love interest and was also the officer who arrested Olive for the murders, Roz stays the course and perserveres in her inquiry. What she discovers is a complex morass of human indifference, greed, and passion that makes for a compelling and well crafted mystery.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This book is fantastic. I was interested to see if I'd like it as I don't usually read this type of book but as soon as I started reading I was hooked. The ending also leaves a linguering doubt in you head which is impossible to get rid of!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Where's the Prologue?
If you are reading this book in Kindle, you may miss the all-important Prologue and Epilogue - they are not listed in the contents - and they are both hidden away right at the... Read more
Published 4 days ago by J. Lamede
A master storyteller
I only recently discovered Minette Walters and have been picking off her novels one by one. The author is a master story-teller, revealing the background and "clues" gradually, as... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Avid reader
The Sculptress
Excellent read. The story keeps your interest from start to finish with some excellent descriptive writing. Thoroughly recommended to anybody who likes a good crime script.
Published 4 months ago by C. E. Mitchell
Intriguing but not convincing...
Warning: contains spoilers for those who have not read the book!
Yes - intriguing, can't put it down book, but disappointing in some of its parts:
Why would a lover who... Read more
Published 13 months ago by MK
Intriguing book
I really enjoyed this book. Had no idea who had committed the murders until all was revealed at the end. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Avid Macclesfield Reader
Brilliant read!
Another excellent book by Minette Walters. One of those books you just can't put down and when you have to can't wait to get back to it!
Published on 12 Feb 2010 by Patricia Currie
the Sculptress
Minnette Walters usual standard, although I had seen this as a teleivision play still thoroughly enjoyed the tape. Well worth listening to.
Published on 3 Jan 2010 by fanny by gaslight
innocent or guilty, that is the question.
Olive has been in jail for a few years after confessing to killing and chopping up her mother and sister after a trivial arguement. Read more
Published on 31 May 2007 by RD
The Sculptress
Even though I've been a fan of Minnette Walters' books for some time, for some inexplicable reason I had never got round to reading this book, one of her earliest, until recently. Read more
Published on 2 Oct 2004 by Rich Milligan
My favourite Minette
This is a classic tale of "all is not what it seems" and "never go by first impressions". I read it whilst on holiday in Spain and was in trouble many times because I just couldn't... Read more
Published on 16 April 2003 by C. F. Halliday
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