Minette Walters - The Devil's Feather (2006)
Reviewed by Fiona Walker
Minette Walters, it is entirely reasonable to argue, was the greatest new crime writer of the '90s. Her first three novels gained her a unique triple (the CWA First Novel Dagger, the MWA Edgar Award, and then the Gold Dagger) that no other writer has achieved since, and probably never will. The critical praise rained down fit to drown, and a stunning run of seven novels followed.
Her unique, twisted imagination, effortless writing and plotting, and an awe-inspiring ability to draw characters both normal and fascinatingly damaged at the same time, marked her out as the most exciting new crime writer for years. For a while, though, the spark dwindled. Simple, forced Acid Row lacked the sinister psychological acuity; lengthy Fox Evil was, in the end, messy, and, though a little better, so was even-lengthier Disordered Minds. Readable and enjoyable enough each one, but more preoccupied with awkward and ill-fitting social comment than telling clear and powerful stories, the focus seemed to shift dissatisfyingly.
So, does The Devil's Feather mark a return to form? A bit, yes. It's very hard to gauge what the reaction to this book is going to be, as it's so different from her previous work (one of her admirable qualities as a writer is an absolute refusal to stand still or tell the same story again). It doesn't scale the grand heights of The Ice House or The Shape of Snakes, but it's clearer, more focused and more powerful than anything else she's written in the past four years.
When Reuters correspondent Connie Burns accuses a high-ranking solider of using the confusion of Civil War in Sierra Leone to get away with the brutal murders of several women, she has no clue of the danger she's putting herself in. The man she accuses has a reputation for violence, and several other women have met similarly brutal deaths in other areas where he has been stationed.
With little real evidence, her accusations fall through and, after being kidnapped in Iraq, she rushes home to England, fearful and paranoid. Telling no one where she is, she goes into hiding, renting a property in a quiet Dorset village. There, she quickly becomes entangled in the small enmities of the locals, and it seems clear that there are just as many mysteries here as where she's on the run from. And, all the while, Connie knows it's just a matter of time before the volatile man she's accused tracks her down.
Really, this is more of a thriller than a mystery, which is why it's so different from Walters' other novels. There is little mystery to be had, but plenty of the expected psychological depth and jittery suspense (though, there is a great sub-plot involving the real story behind how the house Connie rents came to be free, which she quickly gets involved in, and this provides a nice puzzle for those who want more than just the suspense of the woman-in-peril part).
It's also far less messy than a couple of her previous novels: as her last two got longer, the stories got more involved, but here she appears to have reigned herself in, and the result is a far clearer, far tighter and more powerful book, about the effects of abuse and trauma and the way that people cope with them. Too, in The Devil's Feather she seems less determined to pack in social comment. In her early work, she always did it very well on a kind of background level, but lately it's been too obvious, too strained. Clumsy and rather awkward.
Walters has always, always been brilliant at writing about small communities, the rivalries and small tensions, the loyalties and friendships both real and fallacious, the relationships and complexities inherent in them. Her small communities are both microcosms of society and a kind of reversion into our tribal history, seemingly simple and yet in reality endlessly complex, fraught with fractious social difficulty and personal self-advancement, and they allow her to explore the entire spectrum of human relationships in a very effective way.
Here, there is no dwindling of that ability. She's right back on form with her characters, too: Connie Burns is in the vein of all Walters' great protagonists: damaged but with a determined strength to survive, resourceful and dogged, likeable but frustratingly human. Reclusive and introverted Jess Derbyshire, the young farmer Connie befriends whose family died years ago in a car accident, is a fascinating and enigmatic triumph. She is possibly the strongest part of the novel.
The writing, as always, is subtle, clear, and has a flow that makes the reading seem deceptively effortless. As with most of Walters books, this one will continue to reward even on a re-read. There are one or two awkward and sudden shifts, both temporally and in terms of plot, when she jumps the story on with emails and letters between the characters (a device I normally like a lot), which surprised me and jerked me out briefly (Walters has never fallen in that particular trap before), but they don't have too much of an adverse effect: Walters' ability to direct her story right back on track prevents that.
So different is this from her previous work that it's hard to know what fans will think of it. It's not a patch on her greatest work, still, but in my mind it's an exciting, satisfying novel that contains more of the strengths of her early work than it does the more recent weaknesses.
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