The Scold's Bridle by Minette Walters

Minette Walters is good. This is the second book of hers that I read, and I must say that I enjoyed it tremendously. Walter's writing is witty, her dialogues are truer than life, and her characters are diabolical. The plot in this one was flawless and I was kept guessing until the end who had committed the murder – I even wondered if it was murder at all! There seems to be a recurrent pattern of incestuous relationships in Walters's books, but I'll have to read more to see if this is true. In any case, The Scold's Bridle figures such relationships, as did The Ice House. Like all great writers, Walters creates real characters whom you love or hate. She does create a world full of horrors, but not without redeeming features. In this book, an old, bitter woman is found murdered in her bath tub with a scold's bridle on her head. You may wonder, as I did, what is indeed a scold's bridle. Here's the Wikipedia definition: "A scold's bridle, sometimes called "branks", was a punishment device for women, also used as a 'mild' form of torture. It was an iron muzzle or cage for the head with an iron curb-plate projecting into the mouth and pressing down on top of the tongue. The 'curb-plate' was frequently studded with spikes so that if the tongue remained lying calmly in place, it inflicted a minimum of pain." Very nice… And here's a picture of it. I trust you will enjoy The Scold's Bridle as much as I did, if you like crime novels with twisted relationships and a mystery that won't be solved until the very last pages.