The Chameleon's Shadow: Reviews

"The Chameleon's Shadow is a remarkable, almost hypnotic, book that pulls off the incredible trick of making the reader care for disturbed, and on the surface highly dislikeable, people. To do that takes rare skill."

Mike Ripley's Crime File

September 2007

"Minette Walters has never been afraid of tackling contemporary problems in her crime fiction and this book takes her to the heart of an issue for our times… Where a lesser crime writer might suffer failures of empathy, Walters' imagination is especially good on the fantasies of hatred and revenge engendered by war. Her unwillingness to use the easy explanations of criminality so common in crime fiction, and her determination to delve deep into Jungian questions, give the book the layers of depth that we expect of the "literary" novel… The thriller element of the book is a strong narrative of investigation divided between forensic and medical viewpoints, but it hangs on the creation of two compelling people: the bewildered and angry army office, and the determined, quick-minded Dr Jackson. The reader often wants to meet Walters' people again, and the dumbbell-twirling doc is one such memorable character."
Jane Jakeman

he Independent, 20 November 2007

"Minette Walters is an adventurous novelist, who rarely repeats herself. Few crime writers have the courage to eschew the comfort of a regular detective. Her way is to alight upon a psychological issue and build a gripping crime tale around it…Walters leads us to the answer with her usual disturbing ability to look into damaged minds."

Mercel Berlins

A Question of Brains and Trust

The Times Online, 22 Sept 2007

"Walters does so much more than produce tense crime thrillers. She confronts the social issues of the day, many of them sensitive and some of them distasteful…This is another page-turner from Minette Walters and another novel which will deservedly take its place on the bestseller list."

Angela McGee

Sunday Express, 23 September 2007

"Walters has the knack of focussing on an intriguing psychological condition or relationship and using it as the thematic spine of her novels. Her characters ring true whether she's dealing with a career-obsesses young army officer, a teenage thief or a dirty old man edging toward senility. The narrative is typically suspenseful, driven not so much by the hunt for the murderer as by the investigation into Charles's motivation… a disturbing and fascinating thriller."

Andrew Taylor

No end to hostilities

The Spectator, 26 Sept 2007

"Walters has clearly done her homework. Characters and behaviour feel so real, you can imagine them operating in the real world, not just their well-drawn fictional one. If you want to lose yourself in a book this weekend, buy this and find a quiet corner to devour it in. You won’t regret it."

Evening Telegraph

"An intriguing psychological thriller from a master of the genre: the title suggests a story of camouflage and concealment, and indeed there are no easy answers in this story, no easy solutions."

Charlotte Norman

Waterstones Books Quarterly, Issue 26, 2007

"Crime novelist Walters is back in fine form with a thriller that will keep you guessing right to the final pages. Strong characters are her forte and there are plenty from the underbelly of society lurking in this novel about a spate of brutal attacks on gay men in the capital. The author seems to have found her ability to grip readers from start to finish."

Alison Dayani

Birmingham Mail, 3 November 2007

"Engrossing thriller."

Belfast Telegraph

"Minette Walters is one of those rare commodities: a highly successful female crime writer who also happens to be British…The Chameleon’s Shadow builds tempo steadily throughout and – with its insights into psychology, double lives and supporting characters including a female weight-lifting lesbian doctor – it is certainly original."

Nick Ryan

Daily Express, 28 September 2007

"What marks Minette Walters out from the rest is not just the complex yet utterly convincing psychological profiles she draws of her characters, but the fact that she really gets into the heads of some pretty disturbing people… No wonder she is the country’s bestselling female crime writer. But even this label does not exactly do justice to the scope and breadth of her gripping, terrifying novels. The Chameleon’s Shadow is another classic…"

Henry Sutton

The Mirror, 21 September 2007

"Another intelligent, smoothly plotted novel from one of our most interesting crime writers."

Susanna Yager

"This meticulous study of psychopathology examines the personality changes that have followed a traumatic brain injury, turning a straight up, outgoing and brave soldier into an aggressive loner. Sad, sensitive and very well written."

Jessica Mann

Literary Review, 1 October 2007

A wounded veteran of the Iraq war returns to a London landscape just as threatening.Since his Scimitar tank was bombed, Lt. Charles Acland, the sole survivor, has been in no mood to brag about his alleged good fortune. He's sustained serious head injuries, lost an eye and become even more skittish about being touched than he was before. Even so, hospital psychiatrist Dr. Robert Willis notes that he's resolute in expressing his wishes about practically everything. On one point he's especially adamant: He wants no further contact with Jennifer Morley, the stage actress with whom he broke off his engagement just before he left for the front. In the fullness of time she turns up at his bedside, and sparks fly over the sharply differing accounts the two lovebirds offer of their relationship and its abrupt ending. What does their abortive romance have to do with the murderous attacks on a series of inoffensive men, most of them gay or bisexual? For a long time it seems that the only connection is that they're all in the same book. But Det. Supt. Brian Jones, who heads the inquiry into the beatings, finds more and more links that can't be coincidental, especially after Acland, who's checked himself out of the hospital and fallen in with a no-nonsense lesbian physician and her pub-owning partner, turns out to be connected to three different victims: one who drank at his pub, one he quarreled with shortly before the victim was attacked and one whose cell phone he gives the police. Despite the red herrings provided by a diabetic young runaway and the homeless man who befriends him, the net tightens around Acland, whose torment is so piercing he might be a holdover from Walters's last outing in Iraq (The Devil's Feather, 2006).Forget the tangled mystery. The dance of death between Acland and his ex-lover is harrowing.

Kirkus Reviews