- Hardcover: 432 pages
- Publisher: Macmillan UK (Nov 14 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1405034165
- ISBN-13: 978-1405034166
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.2 x 3.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 363 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #987,331 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon.co.uk
Slowly but surely, Minette Walters has been building up her reputation as one of the UK's most penetrating and distinctive purveyors of the psychological thriller. Disordered Minds will add even more lustre to her name. Such books as Fox Evil and Acid Row demonstrated Walters' reluctance to repeat herself in terms of narrative, and her easy command of the various social groups in her novels (upper middle or council estate) is more sure than that of her colleagues and peers.
Disordered Minds builds on her rich mélange of gifts and continues to strip-mine darker areas of the human psyche than most contemporary novelists--literary or otherwise--are keen to tackle. It's the 1970s: a man dies in prison after a controversial conviction for killing his grandmother. Howard Stamp, an educationally subnormal young man, takes his own life, and the case generates movements claiming Stamp's innocence. Anthropologist Jonathan Hughes digs deeper than the police had originally done, and when Jonathan's path crosses that of the elderly George Gardener, long an advocate of the hapless Stamp's innocence, Gardener co-opts Jonathan in an attempt to clear the dead man's name. But there are some frightening consequences, such as the fact that the real killer will not like being put in the frame again.
As always, Walters is interested in far more than the simple mechanics of crime-novel plotting: Despite their differences, Jonathan Hughes finds that the backward Stamp is still something of a doppelganger of himself, mirroring his own disturbed childhood and sense of alienation, while the background of a pending conflict in Iraq throws the personal dramas sharply into relief. This is Walters at her disturbing best. --Barry Forshaw
From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Walters (Fox Evil, etc.) delivers another complex tale of murder and deception. In 1970, 20-year-old Howard Stamp is convicted of brutally killing his 57-year-old grandmother with a carving knife; three years later, he commits suicide in prison. In 2002, London anthropologist Jonathan Hughes includes the Stamp case in his book, Disordered Minds, which examines infamous miscarriages of justice. The mentally slow Stamp may have been coerced into confessing to the murder. George (Georgina) Gardener, an elderly councilor living in Stamp's hometown of Bournemouth, has come to believe in Stamp's innocence herself and asks Jonathan for help in clearing the young man's name. The two get off to a rocky start, but they form an uneasy alliance that gradually grows into a deep friendship. Watching this relationship develop is one of the novel's more entertaining aspects. Walters uses to good effect the multiple viewpoints of her numerous characters, as well as flashbacks, letters, newspaper articles and e-mails to reveal the truth behind the decades-old murder. However, as in life, there are no easy answers, and although the ending may disappoint some, it caps perfectly all that has come before it.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2.5 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"C+" Effort From an "A" Student, May 27 2006
By A Discerning Reader - Published on Amazon.com
Ce commentaire est de: Disordered Minds (Mass Market Paperback)
Walters is a passionate storyteller, and she always infuses her plots with complex social and family conflicts in an engaging manner. The characters in all her novels are quite interesting, and they each have a ring of truth and vulnerability that makes them appealing to us readers.
The reasons people might not call this their favorite MW book:
--Plot is too convoluted. There are so many characters telling so many different versions of these events! After a while, you get a little frustrated trying to keep it all organized in your mind (although you have to admire Walters for being able to keep it all straight herself).
--Weak ending. Although the pertinent questions in the novel are answered, they trickle in at the last few pages in as weak a manner as possible. There's no satisfying comeuppance for any of the guilty parties.
--Suspects' garrulousness. All the people who were present for the tragic events in 1970 Bournemouth feel compelled to answer our nosy protagonists' questions and accusations. If Roy, Priscilla, or any of the others had been sensible, they would have just said "Huh--I'd like to help, but I'm busy right now."
--Foolish political diatribe. For no reason whatsoever, Walters has one of her characters (George--was that ironic, Minny?) spew silly anti-Bush/Blair emesis on a few pages. It has nothing to do with the plot, and it just makes her seem like a foaming, impractical, and close-minded liberal.
She's Minette Walters, and she's great. Her books have psychological credibility and almost always grip you with an unshakable chill of foreboding until you reach the last page. This one wasn't one of her best, but I'm still keeping my eye out for her next release, The Tinder Box.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Monotonous and verbose - not the usual Minette Walters fare!, Oct 12 2005
By Linda A. Widmer - Published on Amazon.com
Ce commentaire est de: Disordered Minds (Mass Market Paperback)
I agree with those in the majority who have reviewed this book. It was a terribly boring story and hard to follow at times. I am a huge Minette Walters fan. In my opinion, she's right up there with Ruth Rendell. She normally writes very captivating stories with a true storyteller's touch but this veered off in quite a different direction than anything else I have read by her. The word by word e-mails from one character to another were dreadful. I found myself skimming over them. It appeared to me that they were put there to take up page space because they certainly were not there to enrich the story or provide anything of interest. There wasn't even really a mystery here. It was obvious what was going on right away. I did not care for this book one bit. The two star rating is because I do love this author and one star would just be shameful (although two stars seems generous).
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Worth reading, weak last 3rd, May 10 2005
By Paul S "Paul" - Published on Amazon.com
Ce commentaire est de: Disordered Minds (Mass Market Paperback)
As has been said, this isn't Walter's best book or top third. But it's worth reading for the interplay between Jon and George, who could be further pursued as characters in the future. But the last third of the book leaves much dropped or weakly resolved and lacking in drama. So read it for the characters and the change in writing styles. It's not boring, just a disheartening ending.
Sure doesn't compare to Elizabeth George..
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