The Devil's Feather (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

This is a book of shadows. Connie Burns, a white native of Zimbabwe, encounters a murky character in Iraq, where she is a war correspondent, and she associates this man with another name, another place, and gruesome unsolved murders of women. She is abducted in a way that leaves authorities to doubt whether it really happened and believes that the abduction and her subsequent release are both effected by the shadowy man with too many names and too much official protection. She retreats to London, where her parents have gone to seek safety after other white Zimbabwean farmers are attacked, and lives a pale existence of fear and anguish over her memories of the three days of her abduction. Retreating further to Dorset, she feels the presence of the man she knows as "MacKenzie" and some unfinished business that did not end with her release from the cellar in Iraq. Is she just paranoid? And her halting friendship with a strange, enigmatic neighbor named Jess is an almost unwelcome complication, especially since there are skeletons in the closet of Jess that lead directly to the house where Connie has set up her refuge. This is a well-written book that is paced with dread. There is enough levity to break up a feeling of awful premonition but this is not a jolly read. It is a thriller in the hands of a master.

The quality of Walters writing rests in her ability to examine character and reveal the truth. From the begining you may think you know what's happened to the protagonist, but you're not absolutly sure and the possibilities put you on edge. Walters has a gift for revealing information about events as we do in life, fact by layered fact, building the tension as she tells the story. The Devil's Feather does this brilliantly as it examines varying degrees of psychopathic behavior and the vaccume of violence that war provides for aberrant behavior. I noted some reviewers remarked on improbable events, but I didn't sense them, or my belief was suspended enough to over look the flaws. Frankly, after more than 50 years, I find little that is improbable, or surprising. But Walters surprises me, and that's rare in a profession full of corporate predictablity and formula writing.

This book is a thrill to read. Minette Walters is a very intelligent writer with exceptional skill at mastering the psychological and suspenseful aspects of her novels while keeping them timely. She demands something of her readers that is rare today. It is obvious she writes for she loves the written word, the same as the old classics were. She doen't write to get a best seller - her masterpieces do that on their own. She writes the story she needs to tell. It is obvious she always does much research and her characters are all very real. But she demands that her readers THINK while reading her works. You can't meander through, look ahead at all. You must invest time to the wonderful adventure she always manages to provide. And yes, I must admit this is not my favorite from her, but any book from Ms. Walters is far and beyond in quality from most of today's authors. I did find the subject matter thrilling, the war components were very well written and her main character was very real to me. I recommend this book highly and always await her next release with great excitement.

It is about 1:30 in the morning, and I just fininshed reading this book. I had put it down when I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore, but I woke up and remembering I only had about 10 pages left, I turned the light on and finished it! This book is so good, the tension I felt as I was reading it was so high, at one time, I had to put the book down and walk away for a while, I found I just needed a break! Ms. Walters has written yet another wonderful book, with characters I really cared about, and a villan that was so scary and so real. This is one you don't want to miss.

In Baghdad in 2004, thirty six years old Reuters' war correspondent Connie Burns is stunned when she spots British mercenary Keith Mackenzie training Iraqi police. She recognizes the instructor from an assignment in Sierra Leone two years before where she thinks he raped and killed local women. Irate that she plans to expose him, out of control Mackenzie abducts, tortures, and rapes the journalist before freeing her with a warning that he will always be near to provide her a second lesson. Connie goes into shock unable to tell anyone what Mackenzie did to her. Needing to mentally heal, she returns to her home in rustic Dorset. She makes friends though it is really that her neighbors Dr. Peter Coleman and fellow recluse Jess Derbyshire refuse to allow her to wallow by herself. With their help she begins to regain her self-esteem and equilibrium, hoping to prepare for when Mackenzie using some other name as he has in the past will come to reeducate her. As always Minette Walters provides an intense psychological suspense thriller that grips readers from the opening moments as the villain takes away a sense of purpose and freedom from the reporter. The tale never slows down as Connie tries to recover mentally from his assault while knowing deep in her soul he is coming for her which keeps readers in a state of anticipation awaiting their showdown. THE DEVIL'S FEATHER is Ms. Walters at her tense writing best. Harriet Klausner