The Chameleon's Shadow

Minette Walters is at the top of my author list for her genre - psychological thrillers - although that label vastly underrates her work and her talent. I have read all of her books, (except the Devils' Feather), and have yet to be disappointed - this book being no exception. The Chameleon's Shadow tracks the recovery of a British soldier, horribly injured and disfigured by an IED in Iraq and the pursuit of a serial killer of older gentlemen in London. These two narratives begin in parallel but inevitably tie together to become one and the same. The story line, which is compelling, is not the key here. This book is driven - just as in Walters' other works - by the characters - their lives, challenges, imperfections - and in a word they become very "real" to the reader. These characters include Charles, our protagonist, a deeply troubled man after his return from Iraq, having lost two of his crew and the sight in his right eye. He can be quick to anger at times, while stoic and oddly repressed at others. He is prone to severe migraines, eats very little and is a loner, straight-arming anyone who attempts to help or befriend him. He wallows in self-pity when the military won't take him back due to his injuries - but somehow he is still likeable. His ex-fiancée is manipulative, self-centered and believes she's Uma Thurman. Charles' therapist is introspective, wise and detached. The police superintendant pursuing the serial killer is quick to judge, unsentimental and driven. The key suspect/witness for the old man murders is a snot-nosed spoiled brat with a whiney mother and he has retained an obstructionist, pain in the ass attorney. This all sounds predictable, formulaic, and maybe even dull. This book is anything but. I can't do the book justice without spoiling it for you. There are no car chases, hostages, time bombs or gun fights but I wasn't able to put this one down once I started it.

Through the first few chapters of this new novel from Minette Walters, the main character, Charles Ackland, irritates everyone--his nurses, his family, the reader. He's been horribly injured in Iraq and will never be "normal" again, a fact that his psychologist tries to prepare him for. But when he becomes a suspect in a series of murders in London, nothing is clear, and guilt seems to darken every corner. Walters maneuvers through a tricky plot with fascinating characters who are so unlikely as to be totally believable, and comes down to a smart and unexpected ending. Great stuff.

THE CHAMELEON'S SHADOW opens with glaring headlines announcing the brutal beating deaths of "Martin Britton, a 71-yr-old retired civil servant [and] Harry Peel, a 57-yr-old taxi driver." If the murders are connected, the only common links so far are their homosexual activities and the fact that they lived alone. Another possible but tenuous tie is their associations with prostitutes of both sexes. As the narrative unfolds, readers meet Lt. Charles Acland, the former driver of a three-man Scimitar "reconnaissance vehicle that is part of a convoy [traveling along] part of the highway that linked Bosra to Baghdad." They could not know that "four Iraqis...crouched in the upper story of an abandoned roadside building...[had them in their sights with] long-range binoculars." By the time Lt. Acland realizes that something in their path doesn't look right, "it was too late. The roadside bombs, a collection of anti-tank mines rigged to produce [an enormous] blast detonated simultaneously as the vehicle passed between them." Two of the soldiers die, but Acland survives the explosion. "Lt. Charles Acland sustained serious head and facial injuries during the attack...the patient's injuries suggest brain damage likely." One side of his face, including his eye, has been burned away. The doctors in the field hospital do what they can for his wounds. Then he is repatriated back to England where his physical and psychological damage can be treated. No one knows what his future will be, and he will have a long and painful stay in the South General Hospital, Birmingham, UK. When he awakens from his coma, he is completely disoriented, terrified, subsumed in pain, angry, confused, suffering from acute post-traumatic stress disorder --- and has gone through a personality change so dramatic that he himself doesn't recognize who he is or was. In the hospital he gets fine psychiatric care from a very sympathetic Dr. Willis, who goes so far as to contact Jen, the former fiancée, to see if she can help by telling him anything about Acland. She is only too happy to share her opinions of her former lover: "Charlie is a chameleon. He projects different images to different people. With his regiment, he is a man's man; with me he's a woman's man; with his parents he clams up and pretends he's not there." After this interchange, Dr. Willis finally admits that Acland is not helping in his recovery and concludes that he doesn't remember exactly what happened in Iraq, except perhaps survivor's guilt. "Willis talked about alienation and social withdrawal...a blunt appraisal of how isolation could lead to...[obsessing] about single issues --- usually people or topics that made him angry." Acland responds only to the last issue: "You're making me nervous, Doc." And in the wake of the information about the danger his hermit-like behavior put him in, he places a call to his parents. But "he found it easier to show no emotion at all, which was a truer reflection of now he felt, for w

As Minette Walter's "The Chameleon's Shadow" opens, twenty-six year old British Lieutenant Charles Acland and his men are patrolling the Baghdad to Basra highway in an armored reconnaissance truck. Suddenly, several roadside improvised explosive devices produce a blast that demolishes their vehicle. Charles, the sole survivor, is horribly disfigured and has lost an eye. When he wakes up in the hospital, he has no memory of the tragedy. A psychiatrist named Dr. Robert Willis comforts the devastated soldier and tries to help him come to terms with the calamity that befell him and his men, as well as with his future as a partially blind and mutilated veteran. Charles's behavior in the hospital is troubling. He refuses to answer simple questions, swears at his nurses, declines the proffered pain medication, and evinces a visceral and generalized anger especially towards women. Although he makes a remarkable recovery physically, his face is damaged beyond repair and he suffers from severe migraines. He is cold to his parents and seems to suffer from deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and guilt. He claims that he is indifferent to his narcissistic ex-fiancée, Jen Morley, with whom he broke up shortly before he shipped out to Iraq. Charles appears to be incapable of normal social interaction; he lives like a "self-denying ascetic," eating little and exercising compulsively. Meanwhile, a series of killings in London has the police baffled. Three men, all army veterans, aged fifty-eight, fifty-seven, and seventy-one, were robbed and brutally beaten to death by a frenzied attacker. Detective Superintendent Brian Jones, who heads up the investigation, and his second-in-command, Detective Inspector Nick Beale, believe that the victims knew their assailant. After Charles almost kills someone in a pub fight, he is restrained by a huge woman named Jackson, who is built like a Mack truck, with close-cropped hair, bulging muscles and biker boots. Jackson is a gay and a doctor. Her partner, Daisy, runs the pub that they both own. This formidable woman becomes Charles's unlikely friend in spite of his prickliness and ingratitude, and in many ways, she saves his life. She not only gives him a place to stay, but also uses her own peculiar brand of "tough love" to shape him up and earn his trust. "She's incapable of mollycoddling anyone, tells it how it is, refuses to tiptoe around prissy sensibilities, and gains respect as a result." Later, an elderly pensioner named Walter Tutting is viciously assaulted but survives; since he had argued with Tutting earlier at an ATM machine, the police pick Charles up for questioning. "The Chameleon's Shadow" is a psychological thriller about the dark impulses that drive people to commit heinous acts. Charles Acland is scarred both psychologically and physically, and he harbors profound antagonism, especially towards women. However, is he capable of killing someone in cold blood? Jackson, for one, h

Minette Walters is England's bestselling female crime writer, and her new novel shows us why. It is a gripping, sometimes shocking mystery that reveals much more than the identity of the killer. As with her earlier titles (THE ICE HOUSE, THE SCULPTRESS, THE SCOLD'S BRIDLE, etc.), Walters makes some important points about the world around us while engrossing us in a terrific story. Lt. Charles Acland is a young man who has been horribly disfigured in the Iraq War. Back in London, his promising military career at an end, he is one of the lost, the "other" victims of war, attempting to readjust to civilian life in a society that has no use for him. His physical disability is accompanied by psychological trauma, manifested by sudden, violent rages, migraine headaches, and an inexplicable aversion to women. Meanwhile, London is being plagued by a series of brutal murders of gay men. When these two stories intersect, the suspense really begins. Is Lt. Acland a monster? He's considered a suspect by the police, and the doctors who have been working with him are unable to explain his odd behavior. A chance meeting with an unusual woman doctor--an enormous, bodybuilding "butch" lesbian who also happens to be the most sensible character in the story--paves the way for a solution to the mystery. THE CHAMELEON'S SHADOW also includes valid observations about mental illness, homelessness, unlikely friendships, and the real, lasting horrors of war. Acland's scars make him one of the statistics, the "acceptable losses" of military personnel in conflict. In this exciting story, Walters eloquently proves that there's nothing acceptable about it. Highly recommended.