A Sowerbridge, une vieille clame fortunée et sa garde-malade sont sauvagement assassinées. On arrête un petit voleur Irlandais qui est immédiatement mis sous les verrous. Il n'en faut pas plus pour ranimer la flamme d'un racisme séculaire dans la petite ville d'Angleterre. Par solidarité avec ses compatriotes irlandais, Siobahn Lavenham tente de défendre la famille du meurtrier présumé sur laquelle s'acharnent les habitants. Ragots, rumeurs, haines ancestrales, tout et n'importe quoi se dit au sujet de n'importe qui. Le pire de préférence... Sowerbridge ? Un petit village qui vaut le détour... Surtout quand Minette Walters s'y promène.
Minette Walters (born 26 September 1949) is a British mystery writer. After studying at Trevelyan College, University of Durham, she began writing in 1987 with The Ice House, which was published in 1992. She followed this with The Sculptress (1993), which received the 1994 Edgar Award for Best Novel. She has been published in 35 countries and won many awards.
The Sculptress has been adapted for television in a BBC series starring Pauline Quirke. Her novels The Ice House, The Echo, The Dark Room, and The Scold's Bridle have also been adapted by the BBC.
Honestly? Well, I liked it actually much more than I expected. My expectations were though initially not really high... It's a story that takes place in a small village, called Sowerbridge, in the South of England. It's not only about the investigation of a murder of an old lady and her live-in nurse, but also about the prejudice of the people, living in that small community, their HATEFUL attitude to a presumable killer and his parents. It's interesting, but not pleasant to follow their way of thinking, how they jump into conclusions and try to judge people based mostly on their own believes and suggestions rather than on evidences. What I liked about it the most was that the book holds its pace and takes numerous really unexpected twists and turns.
A good novella. Prejudice, snobbery, mystery and a few twists and turns. The story is set in the small village of Sowerbridge and after the murder of an elderly woman and her carer suspicion falls on Patrick. He is the son of two Irish gypsies living in the village. He is arrested and the evidence seems overwhelming.
Siobhan an Irish woman supports the Irish couple who are vilified and terrorized in their cottage by the yobs of the village incited by the locals. Rosheen the Irish nanny for Siobhan and a cousin of the Riordan’s also supports them.
In the end its never good to judge a book by its cover and nothing is what it seems. I did not like the chapter headings with dates and times which was confusing. Overall a solid mystery in 114 pages.
Read this some years ago and picked it up again recently. I was reminded that this mere 115 pages written in a very simple style does not belie the powerful message of the story and one line stood out to me on this occasion as being very apt at this particular time: “You can’t incite hatred and then pretend you’re not responsible for it.”
This little book was a very pleasant surprise. I have read some of Minette Walters' other books and they are always good but often a bit grisly and gory. This book was a tale of the snobbery that can exist in a small English village and how you were either accepted by the clique or not. Added to this though there is another form of prejudice and that is racial, it is decided among the 'respectable' villagers that the perpetrator of any crime in the village must be one of the O'Riordan family because they are Irish and they are poor. The only one to try to stand up for family is Siobhan Lavenham who although Irish herself is deemed to be more socially acceptable because she and her husband are better off and live in a nice house. I read the book really quickly because I became engrossed in the plot and really wanted to know who the guilty party was. The story is interesting right up to the last page and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good murder mystery.
"A vingança pessoal é muito mais agradável do que qualquer coisa que a lei possa proporcionar."
Numa pequena comunidade inglesa, uma família de irlandeses é alvo constante de preconceito e vítima de violência, física e verbal, por parte de quem se recusa a aceitá-los como iguais. Tal como no livro "O Caso da Criança Desaparecida" Minette Walters expõe a maldade inerente ao ser humano, que é capaz de infligir as piores atrocidades aos seus semelhantes.
Nesta breve história, as personagens, que se dividem em bons, maus e neutros, julgam-se umas às outras sem medo e não temem a falta de argumentos válidos quando exigem punições. Cada um tem-se a si mesmo no topo das suas prioridades e com vista a satisfazer os desejos pessoais, todos desempenham um papel numa tragédia que podia ser facilmente evitada, se a natureza pura se impusesse.
Gostei bastante da narrativa não linear e da forma perspicaz como a autora junta os diferentes momentos, experiências e sentimentos para nos fazer compreender a revelação final.
"Sob Suspeita" apenas deixa a desejar mais profundidade no desenvolvimento do enredo e das personagens. Fiquei com vontade de conhecer mais de cada um: as suas personalidades e as suas vidas. Da mesma forma, sinto que muitos momentos e experiências ficaram por desvendar, inúmeras palavras por dizer e outras tantas emoções por exprimir.
O livro tem um ritmo moderado, que nunca nos faz perder o interesse, mas que nos dá espaço para respirar e reflectir. Em conclusão apenas tenho a dizer que a minha próxima leitura será da mesma autora.
What a clever little story - twists and turns about as the reader gradually gets to the truth. A man is in jail for murdering a neighbour. His disabled parents are being persecuted by the villagers, angry that their son did such horrible crime. The man and his parents swear he is innocent of murder.
The dates and times switched around, and took me a while to 'tune' into what the time period was. This did jar slightly on the flow of the story, but not too much.
Minette Walters does this a bit with her writings, so I was not surprised. She also used a few 'newspaper articles' to fill in a bit of the background, which again is a technique she uses when she wants to give the reader some information but can't get a character to do it.
J'ai apprécié la lecture de ce livre. Cela se lit très rapidement et les pages se tournent à une vitesse vertigineuse. Bon petit mystère qui nous fait suspecter tous les personnages du livre et une fin intéressante.
Mon #28 de mon reading challenge - Titre avec un antonyme à l'intérieur.
I first discovered Minette Walters years ago and at the time read each of her books when they were released. I found this little book in a charity shop and see from the authors notes that it was written as a suspense novella for the 1999 Book Week.
Despite it's brevity, it is well written and the characters are well developed. It deals with issues such as prejudice, incitement, vigilantism and I understand this formed a sort of blue print for her proceeding novel, Acid Row.
The chapters are broken down into dates and times and the story is told in a fragmented way using the time and date to go back in time to build up the overall picture of events.
The story is set in a small Hampshire village where prejudice is rife where one of the leading locals is a well to do busy body and also a councillor. She has taken against the Irish gypsy family who settled in the village some years ago. When a double murder occurs, all eyes point to this family and the level of hatred and intimidation escalates when one of the Irishmen is arrested.
To say more would be to spoil the story but suffice to say it was a good read and I can see why her next novel would use this to expand on the themes and maybe do them more justice than this short novella is able to do, purely because of it's brevity.
This was... not great. The writing felt weak, the plot twists were obvious a mile away, the characters had all walked directly from a little book of cliché, and the anti-Irish sentiment was definitely treading the line of being quite offensive. It was, however, mercifully short.
Now that was… odd, to say the least. I have a vague positive memory of this author, even if I do not recall the actual book I read many years ago, but this very short book is all wrong. It has an odd mix of slightly shifted timelines, does not introduce characters very well, confuses the reader with odd plot twists out of nowhere and generally leaves you wondering why it explores the ‚hate against the Irish‘ topic so superficially, only to then turn it into a ‚hate amongst the Irish‘ plot resolution. A script that maybe should have been expanded more or never been released as such….
Ja den var väl helt ok. Mer än halva boken var typ bara hat mot irländare. Men det var en plottwist I slutet så det var väl kul. Ganska nice att bara ha en liten pocket att läsa på några dagar.
Short and sweet. I could easily see this novella becoming a movie. In the book I wish there was a bit more character development or cues as to who lived where and who was related to whom; although The Irish cohort development was done nicely. Also, trying to figure out who lives in what house and is married to who, was just hard, even though there was a map - putting the names on the map would be an easy solve. In addition, I hated the timeline - the dates, days, times were unmemorable; every time I was flicking back into the book to see if this was before, at, or after the murder.
Good ending, even though Siobhan was still playing the victim i.e. she knew she was wrong, but was still deflecting.
There is a lot of story and character development crammed into theses few pages. In a very uncluttered kind of way. These books were written specifically with the intention of boosting reading among adult who are not readers and this simple but effective writing style is something I look for in many books, it makes for a wonderful breather in-between wordy deep and exhausting novels.
Reading The Tinder Box brought forth the notion that I don’t read enough novellas.
I’m all for a good “who dunnit” as long as they keep me intrigued, otherwise I tend to get bored quickly and usually end up shelving the book. Tinder was great, put together in a neat, quick read that made me “Ah-ha, I knew it!!” a few times at the end. I probably won’t re-read it, but I will for sure pickup other works Minette Walters, I really enjoy her style.
When I first read this, I got confused by the dating, but this time I read it slowly, following the dating. The story starts well, but does not have a convincing ending.
A chilling tale of prejudice, ambition and cunning, The Tinder Box is a novella from crime queen Minette Walters. In the small Hampshire village of Sowerbridge, Irish labourer Patrick O’Riordan has been arrested for the brutal murder of elderly Lavinia Fanshaw and her live-in nurse, Dorothy Jenkins. As shock turns to fury, the village residents form a united front against Patrick’s parents and cousin, who report incidents of vicious threats and violence. But friend and neighbour Siobhan Lavenham remains convinced that Patrick has fallen victim to a prejudiced investigation and, putting her own position within the bigoted community in serious jeopardy, stands firmly by his family in defence of the O’Riordan name. Days before the trial, terrible secrets about the O’Riordans’ past are revealed to Siobhan, and the family’s only supporter is forced to question her loyalties. Could Patrick be capable of murder after all? Could his parents’ tales of attacks be devious fabrications? And if so, what other lies lurk beneath the surface of their world? As the truth rapidly unfurls, it seems that Sowerbridge residents need to be very afraid. For beneath a cunning façade, someone’s chilling ambition is about to ignite . . .
My Opinion
At just over 100 pages this was a quick book to read and there was a lot going on. A well-written novella.
This book was 2.5 stars for me. It was okay, just mid. I didn’t like how short it was. I was expecting around 140 pages but the last 20 were from a different book, so I was kind of disappointed by the abrupt ending.
It wasn’t a miserable book to get through. I enjoyed it and would’ve liked for it to be a bit longer. I didn’t like how short and “packed” it was. You needed to completely focus when reading to not miss anything crucial to the story which I found isn’t really for me. It feels like homework to read then. The characters were ok but you barely got to know them and as I’ve said in previous reviews I love feeling a connection to characters, which this lacked almost completely. Throughout reading it I felt a disconnection to the world in the book. The author should’ve let the reader in on all the neighborhood gossip prior to all the drama as well as the family issues as everything felt very impersonal and like it was all thrown in there when it seemed convenient. I believe this book had more potential than it showed, which is too bad. Like I said, the book/plot itself was great, but it just lacked a lot. I wanted to know more about the place, the characters, everything but the whole book just was about this one issue and didn’t build more to the world which I think would’ve enhanced my reading.
Mid book, enjoyable read, could’ve been a lot better.
Selbst beim Lesen habe ich nicht gemerkt, dass ich das Buch schon kannte. Zum Glück bin ich über meine alte Rezension gestolpert und kann an dieser Stelle abbrechen.
Schleswig-Holstein Germany am Samstag, 21. Mai 2011 Also, leider habe ich ja ohnehin schon ein gespaltenes Verhältnis zu Mrs Walters, da mich nach der grandiosen Bildhauerin keines ihrer Bücher mehr so richtig vom Hocker gehauen hat und In Flammen reiht sich ganz weit unten ein. Immerhin war die Geschichte sehr schnell gelesen, da der erste Lidl, zu dem ich wollte, wegen Umbauarbeiten geschlossen war und samstags in drückender Mittagshitze die Busse besonders tolle Fahrzeiten haben, reichte es, für meine Einkaufsodyssee als Lektüre. Am Ende bleibt mir aber die Frage, was ich nun denken soll: Dass Iren sture, aber auch verängstige Menschen mit besonders viel Hinterlist sind oder dass sie eigentlich dumm sind? Und dass Engländer ohnehin nie mitbekommen, was vor ihren neugierigen Nasen passiert? Leider bekam man hier, was natürlich auch der Kürze geschuldet sein kann, gar nicht erst die Möglichkeit über den tatsächlichen Hergang eigene Schlüsse zu ziehen und die Auflösung hat mich dann doch sehr überrascht. Wobei mir die letzten Seiten durchaus ein Schmunzeln entlockt haben und daher gibt es noch ein paar Pünktchen.
A gripping, and exciting read, action packed from start to finish. Leaving the reader guessing right until the end, the murder investigation into the deaths of Lavinia Fanshaw and Dorothy Jenkins is a particularly horrific crime. The community are incensed and are als0 confident that they know who the murderer is.
Siobhan Lavenham, as a friend of the family, is not so sure but is sure that the suspect, Patrick O'Riordan is a victim of prejudice. The book then explores this premise, as his family are subjected to abuse and violence. Its impossible to guess what the outcome will be.
As the story unfolds, the O'Riordan family seem to be the victims, and has their son Patrick been unfairly targeted. Read on to discover the truth.
A great read, so involving and exiciting it is impossible to put down. Although its just a short read, as a novella, its intense, and easy to read in one go. I can recommend this as an easy read, but also a thought provoking read as it says a lot about the nature of society and the tendency to jump to conclusions leading to mob rule and victimisation.
This was a good book, the characters were about as well developed as you can get in 120 pages, it held my attention for the hour it took to read and the writing itself was very easy to get lost in. Having said that I thought I'd accidentally slipped a few pages, we arrive at the conclusion with no warning and no bridge between the main dramatic scene and the O'Riodens talking to the police, I had no idea how or why they were there and it all felt a bit rushed, like the author had hit a word limit and had to smoosh an ending it.
I'd read other things from this author, I don't think 120 pages is a good indication of her abilities.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Walters packs a lot into a small number of pages. We land, essentially, in the middle of the case, and play catch-up from then on.
Patrick O'Riordan has been arrested for the murder of an elderly woman and her nurse. But neightor Siobhan Lavenham suspects that prejudice is the main reason for the arrest, and little by little she learns much about the O'Riordans as well as the rest of the community.
Like many of Walters' novels, this one relies on a person intent on finding truth amid many lies.
J’ai bien aimé ce livre. Parfait pour des bloquages de lecture parce qu’il est court et très facile à suivre. Les thèmes abordés sont : le meurtre, le racisme envers les irlandais par les anglais ainsi que la trahison (d’une personne en particulier ;) Je ne sais pas si je suis complètement satisfaite par la fin de cette histoire, c’est pour ça que je lui mets un 3/5. Aussi la couverture du livre est juste magnifique, et j’adore quand les livres ont des petites cartes/map avant l’histoire.
I always love Minette Walters... Pretty sure this book was really good but I was so confused by the end that I didn't quite get who killed whom and why... May have to re-read it... it's short enough to plow through again! Maybe I'll go read spoilers on other reviews and the pieces will fall into place... it's a great book, I just think I was too tired to follow along while reading and the end kind of just speeds up on you!