Weird...but good ending (The Shape of Snakes - Minette Walters)

Member Name: sunmeilan

Product:	The Shape of Snakes - Minette Walters
Date:	07/02/06 (79 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Spine-tingling ending

Disadvantages: Hard to get into

Introduction
This is such a strange book. I have read all of Minette Walters' books; some are better than others and I do agree that this is a good one, but I found it so difficult to get involved in to begin with. The only reason I ever finished the book when I read it for the first time was that I was living abroad at the time and it was hard to get hold of any books in English, let alone crime fiction. So I persevered. And it was worth it. The ending was superb. And when I read it for the second time recently, I enjoyed it all the more.

The author
Minette Walters first hit people's attention with her 1992 book, The Ice House. This was followed by some classics, most famously, because it was dramatised on TV, The Sculptress. The Shape of Snakes was written in 2000. Her work is unusual in that she has no created any ongoing characters: each book is a standalone story, which means that she is able to write about a wide range of topics. She tends to address prejudice in her stories: homophobia, racism, paedophilia and social class. She has a degree in French from Durham and held secretarial posts as her first two jobs. She then branched into writing and editorial work.

The plot
The first part of the story is set in the 1970s and surrounds events that happened in a neighbourhood - particularly the death of a black neighbour of Mrs Ranelagh's, the key character in the book. Annie suffered from Tourette's Syndrome and was not particularly relished by any of the neighbours. One day, she is found dying in the street by Mrs Ranelagh. Annie has no last words for Mrs Ranelagh, yet she is convinced that the death was not natural. This opinion is not shared by anyone else, and eventually, with marriage problems and a breakdown to cope with, Mrs Ranelagh and her family leave the country.

20 years on, the Ranelagh family return. Mrs Ranelagh has never been able to forget Annie's death and back in her own country, begins to investigate the death once more, talking to friends and neighbours of 20 years before. Many people seemed to have a reason to get rid of Annie and certainly no-one mourned her death. Mrs Ranelagh becomes more and more obsessed with finding the truth. After 20 years, is it possible to find out how Annie really died?

The characters
This book was not written solely as prose, but also with a number of letters and newspaper articles and Mrs Ranelagh’s psychiatric reports inserted and I found this took away from the development of the characters. I found it hard to sympathise with Mrs Ranelagh, who remains a very distant character throughout, although she is the main character and reports on her mental health are included. It is hard to understand why she felt so strongly about Annie's death after so many years. This does become clear towards the end though. None of the other characters stand out at all and there are certainly none that could possibly classed as likeable.

Conclusion
I would recommend that you read this book - but bear in mind that if you find it tedious to begin with, stick with it. The ending is absolutely fabulous, took me completely by surprise and sent shivers down my spine and it is that that makes this such a memorable book for me. I have read so many fabulous books that disappoint at the end and it was so good to read a book that affected me like this one. Hence the good rating.

Bad points are the inclusion of letters and newspaper articles, which I think take away from the characters and the plot development. It distracted me to such an extent that I really did find it difficult to finish the book and it did take two or three attempts before I actually managed to crack on with it. Recommended.

The book is available from Amazon for £5.59. Published by Pan, it has 448 pages. ISBN: 0330373250

Summary: Hard to get into, but an excellent ending