Disordered Minds [Hardcover]

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

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.
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"An enjoyable read, vintage Minette Walters - Smart, literate, compelling." -- Calgary Herald on Fox Evil

"In Minette Walters' ninth and best novel, her talent for creating great characters and spooky settings is on show." -- The Globe and Mail on Fox Evil

"It's all here - a chewy, bawdy, tasty tale of intrigue. Evil has never been so much fun." -- The Hamilton Spectator on Fox Evil

"The novel can be described in one word: WOW!" -- Vancouver Sun on Fox Evil

`The only factors that unite her works are her penchant for dark psychological perception; and their excellence` THE TIMES

In 1970, Harold Stamp, a retarded, reclusive twenty year-old was convicted on disputed evidence and a retracted confession of brutally murdering his grandmother - the one person who understood and protected him. Less than three years later he is dead, driven to suicide by isolation and despair.

Jonathan Hughes, an anthropologist specialising in social stereotyping, is determined to re-examine this case. There were alarming disparities in the evidence and Hughes has little doubt that there has been a terrible miscarriage of justice. But there is also something else pushing this half-Iranian, half-Libyan outsider to reach for the truth...

This is more than a mere expose of corruption, it is a dark tale of solitude and the relentless need to contain aberration and section evil.

`Minette Walters has stormed her way into crime fiction. With her first three books she claimed the highest accolades the crime-writing world can bestow... A seductive writer with an imagination that makes her dangerous to know` SUNDAY EXPRESS

DISORDERED MINDS is Minette Walters’ tenth novel. She lives in Dorset with her husband and two children.