Those of you who follow my reviews can see I've been on a bit of a Minette Walters kick. I've read three of her books in quick succession, with a pause to revisit a Plath biography. Even that pause was spurred by Walters, whose writing is characterized by strong women who go against societal expectations, who suffer, and who eventually find a way to expose the truth - all of which describes Plath. Like Plath's poetry, Walters fiction delves into the cultural morass of womanhood and truth by way of a deeply personal investigation on the part of a female protagonist.The philosophical aspects, the shocking nature of the method of telling, and the masterful prose are brain candy. Or, if my Walters kick is any indication, brain crack.Yes, reading a Walters crime thriller is like taking a big hit of mental crack.And that's a good thing.THE DEVIL'S FEATHER is my third Walters book, and my favorite. Connie Burns, a war correspondent, has returned to England after being released by a sadistic abductor who kept her naked, caged, and in the dark for three days. Connie can't handle the comforts of home, not when those comforts will induce her to admit the extent of her violation. She goes to the country, where she lets a house. Her closest neighbor is Jess Derbyshire, an intensely private and enterprising woman. Jess has familial ties to the house Connie has rented, and emotional ties to several key players in a elder-neglect story arc that serves as the 'domestic' counterpoint to the 'international' torment of Connie and her abductor's other victims.The story is bewitching, and infused with the tension of Connie's trauma. In wonderful, dark-magic - even Plathy - fashion, Walters manages yet another plot where emotional and narrative energy crystallizes around a nexus of unseen events. Walters never shows you the gory moments of violence, but the shape of the aftershock forms a negative space wherein the reader is entirely, viscerally aware of what happened. It is gorgeous. Most of Walters's characters are, to me, unlikable. The protagonists tend to be manipulative and avenging, the sort of strong woman that in real life would command respect, if not fear. The antagonists tend to be real scum - with a strong tendency towards also being rapists. Then comes Jess Derbyshire, who is not only tough, smart, independent, and avenging, but also likable. Jess is an artist, a farmer, a single woman who lives her life without kowtowing to any societal or conventional 'musts.' She doesn't speak much, but the integrity of her actions is valorous. There are no easy, sugar-sweet half-lies with Jess. Nor is she beautiful. In books, just as much as in Hollywood, women are often portrayed as beautiful. Even women cast as smart or commanding or funny are also somehow foxy, shapely, or downright cute. It is refreshing to meet Jess, an interesting and likable woman, who is not a mockery of real womanhood, or a secret confession that, yes, women really are mostly there for their looks, even when they happen to be smart, commanding, or funny. THE DEVIL'S FEATHER should be on your reading list, not only for the absolute command Walters has of the art of storytelling by omission, but because you'll meet Jess Derbyshire. You won't forget her. Oh, and you've been warned about the addictive nature of Walters's fiction - enjoy!
This is I think the fourth Minette Walters I've read, and it's the first about which I've had strong reservations. The opening 250 pages or so are absolutely splendid -- every bit as good as expected -- but the final 100 or so just sort of meander unconvincingly.Connie Burns is a war correspondent who picks up on the fact that a Glaswegian "security consultant" (i.e., mercenary) whom she encounters first in Sierra Leone and then in Baghdad, Keith Mackenzie, is taking advantage of the general social mayhem to commit sadistic rape-murders. He retaliates by abducting her -- everyone assumes it's a terrorist abduction, of course -- and putting her through three days of sexual and other humiliations. Oddly, he then releases her -- perhaps reckoning that living with her memories of those three days will be worse than death? I dunno.Too terrified to point the finger -- at least publicly -- Connie flees to England where, under a phony name, she rents a dilapidated house in a remote Dorset village.* There she encounters, and is taken under the wing of, a neighboring farmer, Jess Derbyshire, and the local GP, Peter Coleman. She's sure that Mackenzie will come after her to finish the task he inexplicably didn't in Baghdad . . . and of course he does.What above all else keeps the story moving is the character of Jess Derbyshire. Fiercely inept in the usual social graces, quite uncaring of what others think about her, she demonstrates a genuine goodness of heart in an environment where others -- Connie included -- seem superficial in their commitments to each other. It's just unfortunate that Jess is also (innocently) at the heart of the book's secondary plot, which is to do with ancestry and an inheritance and is frankly pretty dull. It's the rather unconvincing resolution of this secondary plot that keeps the book rambling on for that extra hundred pages. And during those pages she loses a lot of her credibility as the masterful fictional creation she seemed to be earlier, as if the author had lost interest in her.So, very much a mixed bag. As I say, the first time I've been disappointed by one of Walters's novels.=======* We're told the house is big, but at one point (p67) Jess remarks, while calculating how long a phone extension cord should be, that it must be at least 100m from the kitchen to the master bedroom. Think about that for a moment. 100ft, maybe?
What do You think about The Devil's Feather (2006)?
Psychological non-thrillerHaving been totally captivated by every Minette Walters book that I have picked up in the past, The Devil's Feather came as a huge disappointment to me. It has to be the most unthrilling "thriller" that has ever appeared on my bookshelves. It took some stamina to plough through nearly five hundred pages of the fictional ramblings of a self-obsessed woman who doesn't trust anyone around her and just moans and groans about her circumstances. To be fair to the author, there are a couple of chapters of action towards the end of the book, but they are far from convincing and I was willing the protagonist to put the narrator out of her misery. Sadly, she survived to inflict more tedium on the reader.Had this been Minette Walters's first novel, she would have sunk into oblivion along with thousands of other wannabe authors. Let's hope that her next effort returns to her usual brilliant standards.
—Lance Greenfield
Minette Walters seldom disappoints me and this read was no exception. Devil’s Feather is psychological suspense at its best. What would it feel like to be a victim of a terrorist kidnapping? This is just what happens to Connie Burns, Reuter’s reporter. While working on a story in Sierra Leone about five women brutally murdered, she suspects a British mercenary. She has met this man before under different names and is certain he is using the backdrop of war as a cover for his sadistic murders. In a confrontation with him, he warns her not to cross him. Connie could not know to what lengths this man would go to make good on his threat.What I really loved about this book was how well Walter’s portrays monsters that prey, the victim, and explores the role of survivor. I learned a thing or two, also. I learned that the mastiffs in the Hounds of the Baskervilles were actually a mastiff/bloodhound cross and that they are scarier than the mastiffs belonging to a main character in Devil's Feather. Though Jess’s dogs are massive in size and look ferocious, they are less to be feared and less ferocious than expected. I was intrigued by the definition of Devil's Feather coming from the Turkish and translating as "a woman who stirs a man's interest without realizing it; the unwitting cause of sexual arousal. This passage, at the beginning of the book drew me right in. Having read many of Walter's novels, I was right at home with her style of story told with use of emails, letters, newspaper stories and the like. She does this so well.
—Carol
I almost gave up on this book 100 times. But I ploughed through it to the very end (a very talky and seemingly interminable ending), through all the ramblings of the very irritating main character, Connie, and the lifes of some village weirdos.I was hoping for some surprises, but the course of action remained flat and so predictable.A Psychopath is stalking a vulnerable woman. And oh shocker! The psychopath tries to kill said woman. Sadly, (view spoiler)[ she survives to inflict more ennui on the reader. (hide spoiler)]
—Vivi Vocat
