November 1978. The winter of discontent. Britain is on strike. The dead lie unburied, rubbish piles in the streets - and somewhere in West London a black woman dies in a rain-soaked gutter. She was known as 'Mad Annie' and was despised by her neighbours. 

Her passing would have gone unmourned and unnoticed but for the young woman who finds her and who believes - apparently against reason - that Annie was murdered.

But whatever the truth about Annie - whether she was as mad as her neighbours claimed, whether she lived in squalor as the police said, whether she cruelly mistreated the cats found starving in her house - something passed between her and Mrs. Ranelagh in the moment of her death which binds this one woman to her cause for the next twenty years. 

But why is Mrs. Ranelagh so convinced it was murder, when by her own account Annie died without speaking? Why does the subject make her husband so angry that he refuses to talk about what happened that night? And why would any woman spend twenty painstaking years uncovering the truth - unless her reasons are personal...?

 


Minette Walters is one of my favorite authors, she weaves amazing tales of intrigue and suspense like no one else. Almost all of her books have been made into (generally) mediocre mini series. To me these do nothing for the stories, which are far superior. I've waited to read this book for a long time and can't wait to get into it.

 


11th March 2001
End of chapter one

So far there's not a lot happening, the groundwork is being laid on what might be an interesting story. At the moment I'm hoping that the initially quite lame story arch is going to pick up soon as It feels right now a little choppy.

 


22nd July 2001
The End

I'm such a slacker, I finished reading this a couple of months ago and haven't written it up yet. So If this is sketchy it's because it was done in retrospect.

After watching Annie Butts die in her arms, Mrs. Ranelagh become the victim of untold harassment which culminates in her husband and her emigrating overseas. Many years pass and they return to England, but Annie's death still weighs heavy on Mrs. Ranelagh's mind.

The book charts her investigation into what she believes to be a racially motivated murder at the hands of one of her neighbours. As the story unfolds it becomes apparent that it's not justice alone motivating her, but revenge. Revenge for turning her family and friends against her and thinking her mad for being unable to let Annie rest...and also the growing catalogue of abuse Mrs. Ranelagh suffered at the hands of her killer.

She uncovers Annie's turrets syndrome, the reason her neighbours shunned her and nick named her 'Mad Annie'. In fact the woman is the owner of a considerable collection of valuable African artifacts...where were they when the police arrived to search the house? She loved her many cats, but why were so many of them either dead or dying from apparent months of neglect? What Mrs. Ranelagh finds out doesn't fit the image her neighbours had of her, so she returns to the scene of both her and Annie's torture to find the culprit and make them pay.

 


My overall impression of this book was that Minette Walters copped out big time when she wrote this. The first page of the book is a KKK manifesto available on the internet, which is both shocking and gives the impression that this is going to be not only a thriller but an issue based story. This however was not the case. Given the heavy racial overtones initially I was expecting a book tackling the hard core of racial prejudice in this country, instead it did little more than talk about the unpleasant undertone that runs rampant through many of the poorer parts of our society. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, the story was compelling although I didn't really find Mrs. Ranelagh a particularly sympathetic narrator and certainly wouldn't want to have tea with the lady.

The actual story was complex and a little hard to follow, there were a few too many minor character to keep track of, many of whom served no real purpose except to confuse the reader and give more 'who dunnit' options for the climactic Miss Marple-esk finale. I can say in total honesty when Mrs. Ranelagh called the usual suspects together at the end I gave an audible groan, far too clichéd to be a rewarding end to the story. I hope and pray that Minette soon returns to her earlier form, as this and The Breaker really have been a bit of a let down.