As I said before... all this free time is creating a real problem for me on the review front! I have tried to get my brain interested in other things like cryptic crosswords and telly but it seems the brain wants to read. So in order not to get behind even further.
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The Ice House - Minette Walters
This one was good but there were some distractions to contend with.
Most people you meet very soon do something that makes you wonder if they are really the stereotype they initially are presented to be. They will do or say something that make your spider sense tingle. In the end everyone turns out to be different from how they are first portrayed or believed to be. It is almost as if Walters wants you to suspect everyone of being a potential killer. I am afraid to say it did not quite work for me. It was almost as if knowing the trick Walters was pulling I kind of just sat back and let Walters tell her tale and wait for the story to unfold and deliver the killer to me.
It has all the necessary elements for a good detective story from the start. A fairly decomposed body is found in a location not many people would know to look (an old ice house). It is found on the land of a women (Mrs Phoebe Maybury) whose own husband mysteriously disappeared years ago. No-one in the village seems to like her very much. Especially not as she minds her own business and does not feel the need to explain why she now lives in the house now with two other women (Diana Goode and Anne Cattrell) and some caretakers that may or may not be on the level. Chief Inspector Walsh is jumping at the chance to investigate this most recent corpse. He is the same guy that investigated the husband's disappearance all those years ago. He seems almost pre-determined to make her life miserable (again) and has a sidekick with a chip on his shoulder the size of Alaska to help him do this. Walsh is presented as the grizzled, older and wiser cop. He has done his time in the force and has almost got one eye on the exit door at all times. Having said that he seems an okay kind of cop and thorough in his investigations. He certainly seems to have done a good job of trying to find out who tried to kill Mr Maybury at the time of that incident. He also seems very determined to get Phoebe locked up for this body that has appeared on her doorstep even though he initially seems to have no real reason to. His "able" assistant is Detective Sergeant McLoughlin. He is presented as the kind of plodder cop who has not really made too much of himself and may not be the brightest tool in the toolbox . Oh, and his missus has recently run out on him (of course she has). He is presented as a bit of a burly guy, intimidating and almost brutishly dismissive of women especially if they are cleverer than him (I'd have left him too!).
The women seem to be very much on their guard around Walsh and they do not think much of McLoughlin either. Mind you McLoughlin behaves like an oaf around them. I am not quite sure what is worse. His demeaning attitude towards them whilst he thinks they may be lesbians or the apparent change of attitude hen he realises they are not? Walsh certainly seems to get a kick out of antagonising the ladies and he seems only to happy to have another crack at trying to convict Phoebe of the murder of he own husband. For long time it is almost as if the book is about that only. It is not so much pin the tail on the donkey as pin the murder on the lady of the house. Sure Walsh and McLoughlin do the usual checking of alibis, some gathering of information and some looking into reports from missing persons but it is almost as if Walsh goes through the motions while he figures out how to get Phoebe for both this murder and the earlier murder of her husband. They are just going through the investigative routine.Walsh seems to know exactly where he is going and you kind of know that he cannot possibly be right with his suspicions. Walters decided to muddy the Waters a little by making one of the disappearances into a side story of its own with a quite funny story of a business man, a vagrant, some pink trousers and a performance by an Oscar winning wife. It is one of those ones which seems to go somewhere only then to be resolved with whimper. You know it is only a distraction from the main story and there probably is not pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but you read on anyway in case there is.
Just when you think that through dogged police work the truth will out Walters turns the whole thing on its head and changes things around a bit. Science prevails and Walsh is forced to consider the option that the body in the ice house is not Mr Maybury and might not even be a murder. Does he accept that? Of course not! However, there is hope as (who would have though it...) it turns out that McLoughlin is not the brute, stupid cop he initially seems to be. He finds out that his boss has been dropping the ball left right and centre and sort of takes over the investigation and puts things right so justice can prevail. Walsh is shown up for the vindictive little village cop that he is, McLoughlin is the hero of the hour and we even find out who the body in the ice house actually is. Pity we had to sit through lots of useless side stories of speculating villagers, some sexual tension between McLoughlin and one of the women, the matter of the children, the history of events of the initial murder of Mr Maybury and some very vindictive and not to mention randy neighbours in between all of it.
It is good that you do find out who the corpse in the ice house is and what really happened to Mr Maybury, although it is not Phoebe who tells this story but Anne. It is kind of a sad story and you do understand why the women closed ranks, withdrew and seem to be tied to the house. McLoughlin finds out what really happened in the house. Suffice it to say it involves Mr Maybury, an innocent little girl and a bit further down the line some out of control villagers as well. Naturally now that McLoughlin knows what happened he (being the good dedicated and loved up copper that he is) is eager to help Anne find a final solution to her problem. So he seems to have enough morals to take his boss to task but not enough to do something about a murder that is confessed to him.. fine, it was self defense but come on!
The bit that is a bit too much for me is the fact that at the end of the book Phoebe decides that it is now time to get back out there and be part of village life. Hey, the local pub landlord seems to think it is worth a try so why not eh? It just seems a bit too Happy Endings Inc for me. .
Still.... all in all the story is okay and the writing is good, it's got a good pace. There are just a few too many distractions for me and the fact that every main character is not who they seem initially is a bit much. It is like Walters keep wanting to catch me out by giving me a character and then turning into its opposite. It is almost like the body in the ice house. At first that seems to be the most important thing in the book but throughout the story it becomes secondary and irrelevant as all the other stories and lies play out around it.
Title: The Ice House
Author: Minette Walters
413 pages
Pan Books
ISBN #0-330-32791-7
Books to be read: 147
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