Acid Row: The name the beleaguered inhabitants give to the place they live. A no-man's land of single mothers and fatherless children where angry, alienated teenagers control the streets.

Into this battleground comes Sophie Morrison, a young doctor visiting a patient in Acid Row. Little does she know that she is entering the home of a known paedophile. And with reports circulating that a tormented child called Amy has disappeared, the vigilantes are out in force...

Soon Sophie is trapped in the center of a terrifying siege, with a man she has come to despise.

Whipped to a frenzy by unsubstantiated rumor, the mob unleashes it's hatred. Against authority, the law - and the 'pervert'. 'Protecting Amy' becomes the catch-all defense for the terrible events that follow. And if the murder is part of it, then so be it...

But is Amy really missing...?

I fear the absolute worst with this book. I know in my heart that if this offering from Minette Walters slips back to the same standard of her last two books it'll be the last one I buy. Reading the back of the book seems to me that the author is jumping on an emotive band wagon with the subject matter, and one that I'm not looking forward to exploring. If she tackles the subject of paedophilia with the same complete lack of balls with which she attempted the subject of racism I doubt I'll finish it. I can't see any way she can make this work satisfactorily; either the rowdy mob hounding an innocent man will give the idea that sex offenders should be given a second chance (not a sentiment with which I agree) or they'll be a lynching, which will be equally unpleasant. Suddenly I'm wondering why I decided to buy this...oh yeah, Minette Walters has written three of my all time favourite books, The Dark Room, The Sculptress and The Ice House...that's the only reason I'm even considering reading this.

January 23rd
The End

I admit, I was ungracious to Minette Walters talent in my pre-reading views. She managed to deal with the convicted paedophile problem delicately by making his 'crime' one of mere underage gay sex rather than child molestation (the age of consent for heterosexuals in the UK is 16 while for gay men it's 18). Instead of the registered 'offender' being the dangerous predator it was his unconvinced father that poses the threat to society, and more to the point the inhabitants of Acid Row.

The story begins with a disgruntled social worked becoming angry at a single mother she deemed irresponsible and accidentally letting slip that a sex offender has recently moved into the estate. The rumor mill begins in earnest, and the mother, Melanie, along with her mother, Gaynor, decide to demonstrate their disapproval at the decision to rehouse a convicted paedophile where there is such a concentration of young children without letting the patents know the dangers. As the crowd gathers to make their point known the unruly residents of Acid Row prepare to riot.

There were many things in this book I liked, a gripping story well told, a lot of drama and a selection of interesting characters through whose eyes the events unfold. My problem with the book was more fundamental. Minette Walters. It read very much like a middle-class person's stereotypical idea of people living on estates below the poverty line, rather than the reality. Her own prejudice coloured every page, talking about the people as ignorant illiterates, little better than animals, who would think nothing of violence and murder. I found this a fairly offensive view and, as someone whose lived in areas much like Acid Row, thought her attitude did little to illuminate the reality of estate life. The opinions of the professionals, police, doctors and healthcare workers, seem to mirror those usually reserved for the more right-wing tabloid papers. What's more the characters themselves lack redeeming features, whichever side of the Molotov cocktail they find themselves on.

Unlike many readers I've actually lived through a situation much like the one described in the book. When I was about 7 marauding mobs took to the streets of the 'bad' part of town I lived in. I remember clearly the residence association president coming to see us during the day to warn us, and help us prepare for the coming chaos. Advising us to stay away from windows, and stay behind furniture in case the windows were broken. That night was terrifying, and the damage was extensive which we were able to see for ourselves the following morning. However, the majority of the people in the area were doing just what we were, hiding behind the couch hoping it would all go away. Perhaps things would be different today, and women and children would become involved in the mob violence, but the scenes described in the book, though frighteningly evocative, didn't have a ring of truth about them. It felt as though someone with a strong opinion of people in a certain area had driven past or seen footage of such an event and extrapolated from there.

The actual story was disturbing and compelling, but the techniques used to tell it were questionable in my opinion. It felt as though Minette Walters didn't much like the section of society she'd chosen to deal with, and not for the first time. For me she writes best about small, village communities, like in her early books. When she tries to be 'relevant' and 'cutting edge' she falls short and comes off patronising, simplifying the issues too much. All in all this was much better than I anticipated, though flawed in ways I wasn't expecting. Still a good read though.