General Praise for Minette Walters

Barbara Peters,
The Poisoned Pen, 04/03/04: "Minette Walters remains one of the most original (and disturbing) writers at work, mining dark and often bizarre regions of the psyche while addressing herself to the difficult interfaces of a tightly bound society where friction produces that conflict that leads to crime (and to excellent crime writing). I await her every novel with interest and a kind of appalled fascination with what she will illuminate next, and how she will do it as she employs a range of materials beyond the linear narrative."

Gerard O’Donovan,
Daily Telegraph, 06/12/02: ‘Of all contemporary British crime novelists, Minette Walters’s dark psychological thrillers have made some of the best transitions to the small screen.’

Victoria Parker, The Guide (Blackheath & Greenwich), 01/01/02: ‘She is an author who has the enviable distinction of having both critical acclaim and sales in bookshops and she works hard to achieve her success.’

Amanda Craig, New Statesman, 29/10/01: ‘All Walters’s novels question assumptions made by both her central characters and the reader, and much of the visceral thrill of solving their crime comes from discovering emotional and social verities as well as who dun it. The agent who does this is usually, although not always, a woman — the embodiment of professional, middle-class virtues — who refuses to judge others harshly. This is particularly appealing because Walters describes worlds that many of her middle-class readers would prefer to ignore, or condemn.’

Hilary Bonner, The Independent (The Information), 28/06/03: ‘Every book is completely different to the last. She is one of the few crime novelists to have built her writing career around stand-alones rather than novels featuring a serial detective of some sort.’

Barry Forshaw, www.amazon.co.uk: ‘Walters’ prose has long sported the elegance and precision of ‘literary’ writing, while still bearing all the hallmarks of the crime novel. Such distinctions seem meaningless here, so adroit is the marriage of both genres.’

Crime Time, 01/04/03: ‘Now firmly established among the ranks of the best British practitioners of the tale of twisted psychology’.

Observer, 29/12/02: ‘Minette Walters is clearly on a roll. Each novel she brings out differs from the one before in style and subject matter but remains the same in the sheer verve of the writing and the thrills she provides.’

The Journal (Newcastle upon Tyne), 07/08/01: ‘Since her first novel, The Ice House, Minette Walters… has developed into one of our most talented crime writers.’

Bob Williams, Driffield Post, 19/10/01: ‘one of the best exponents of the crime thriller’.

Saubhik Chakrabarti, The Sunday Statesman, 26/08/01: ‘Those who want their thrillers almost-literary should make it a point to read Minette Walters. Ms Walters possesses some of the best qualities defining the English whodunit canon — gothic imagination, intricate plotting, spare but compelling pen portraits and a fine ear and eye for the many complexities of class-ridden English society. She has something more as well, the ability to question prejudice without sounding preachy (something American writers find difficult) and to engage the reader’s sympathy without the least bit of sentimentalism.’

Steve Lee, Metro Midlands, 04/09/01: ‘Perhaps the most outstanding feature of Walters’ work is the fact that virtually every crime-writing cliché has been avoided… A true mould-breaker.’

USA Today, May 99: ‘The author is adept at psychological suspense stories in which horrible crime lurks within idyllic British settings.’

www.malicebooks.com: ‘This author is, arguably, the best of the newer crop (1990's) of British mystery writers.’