Synopses & Reviews
Few tears fall when rich, spiteful old Mathilda Gillespie's bloody corpse is found her bathtub, her wrists slit and the ancient scold's bridle clamped on her head. It seems Mathilda's favorite heirloom was also an instrument of torture form the Middle Ages, an iron cage used to gag yapping women. Among the Dorset villagers, only Sarah Blakeney, Mathilda's doctor for her final year, seems even mildly disturbed that the miserable nag has been muzzled forever.
But suicide starts to look like homicide, and Sarah's sorrow seems a bit contrived when the bombshell drops that Mathilda has disinherited her daughter and granddaughter, leaving her entire fortune to Sarah. Now the object of vicious gossip and the police's prime suspect in a brutal murder, Sarah must prove her innocence by delving into Mathilda's past to unmask the real killer.
Review
"Minette Walters knows the cruel kinkiness that can lurk behind the most sedate of facades."--
Los Angeles Times
"Thoroughly chilling . . . gripping . . . disturbing."--Orlando Sentinel
"Walters fearlessly flirts with gothic menace and intricacy as she draws all the loose threads together in this full-bodied plot."--The Washington Post "A wonderful, thought-provoking mystery by a brilliant new British writer."--The San Diego Union-Tribune "Fans of P.D. James and Ruth Rendell will respond to Minette Walters's deft touch and psychological suspense and appreciate her ability to depict complex and sympathetic women characters."--Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Synopsis
Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger Award
Dr. Sarah Blakeney is one of very few mourners when her grumpy old patient, Mathilda Gillespie, dies at home in the bathtub, apparently of suicide. The old woman has taken barbiturates, slit her wrists, and bound her head in a rusted contraption called a scold's bridle, a cage with tongue clamps used to torture women in the Middle Ages. The police start to suspect homicide right around the time they learn that Sarah has been generously included in the dead woman's will. When she becomes the prime suspect in the murder, it's up to Sarah to delve into the bizarre details of Mathilda's private life, a history of greed, abuse, and depravity, and uncover the real killer.
About the Author
Minette Walters is the author of fourteen suspense novels and the winner of the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and the CWA John Creasey/New Blood Dagger Award, among others. Her work has been translated into twenty-six languages. She lives with her husband in Dorset, England.