Disordered Minds by Minette Walters

Minette Walters is perhaps my favourite crime writer at the moment. She is by far the most consistent of all my other favourites like Patricia Cornwell, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James, and newly-found Ian Rankin, and her books rarely let me down. She writes psychological thrillers usually featuring extremely disturbed people and disgusting events.

In Disordered Minds the emphasis is on childhood trauma and the charming subject of paedophilia. It's a story about a 30-year old murder and the effort of two people to prove that the now-deceased convicted murderer was in fact innocent. In addition to normal narrative, Walters uses letters, emails and police reports to tell the story quite effectively. Her characters are not the most likeable, even the ones whose side you're on - but you warm up to them eventually. She includes a lot of social critique in to the story, as well as trying to understand how childhood events can scar people for life - examples are found on both sides of the fence, in the investigators as well as the investigated. The conclusion why some of the characters turn into crime and some into academia is left to the reader without too much of an explanation.

I'm often very bad at guessing who-dunnit. Guessing the murdered in Walters' books is almost impossible for me. Someone might ask, why then one of my favourite genres is crime fiction - and I have to say I don't often even think about who might be the murderer until I'm almost at the end. In addition, Walters usually leads the reader - ok, at least me - down the garden path and just when they turn back to say "But... there's no one here!" she stabs them in the back. Disordered Minds is much easier in this aspect - I had my doubts and I thought I was being quite clever, but then it turns out that the main characters were right after all, and my guess was actually pretty good too. So I feel a little cheated.

Not to say that it's not a good book. It is - although it's no Shape of Snakes (which, by the way, has the best opening sentence in any book, ever, and sets up the story beautifully) - and I wouldn't hesitate recommending it to anyone.