The Sculptress by Minette Walters

Series: Sculptress (Book 1)
Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks; First Edition edition (October 15, 1994)

Well, I'll admit that the summary and the French title (as I've read this book in French which title is roughly translated : Bloody Kitchen) were so catchy that I wanted to read this book.

Who has never judged a person by one body? And when you have a not so pretty figure, like Olive, it's not easy to attract sympathy. And Olive, although she is scary, she is fine enough to know that she doesn't leave a good impression! 

Is that why she pleaded guilty? Knowing people already judged her. Is that why she doesn't speak? Knowing that this is useless?

In any case, she agrees to speak to Rosalind Leigh who initially is not wanting at all to write about her. But Rosalind, despite her first unfavorable impression, soon began to have doubts about Olive's guilt and decided to conduct her investigation. 

And we discover, in the course of Olive's confidences, a family history of the most nauseous, buried secrets, dirty trick among friends. Olive's life is not all rainbows!

What's the story?

In prison, they call her the Sculptress for the strange figurines she carves-- symbols of the day she hacked her mother and sister to pieces and reassembled them in a blood-drenched jigsaw. Sullen, menacing, grotesquely fat, Olive Martin is burned-out journalist Rosalind Leigh's only hope of getting a new book published.

But as she interviews Olive in her cell, Roz finds flaws in the Sculptress's confession. Is she really guilty as she insists? Drawn into Olive's world of obsessive lies and love, nothing can stop Roz's pursuit of the chilling, convoluted truth. Not the tidy suburbanites who would rather forget the murders, not an attack on her life-- not even the thought of what might happen if the Sculptress went free...

In a nutshell

A novel that reads quickly, a guilty too monstrously ideal, a twisted family history, a real pleasure! It's a 4/5 for me.

Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton

St. Martin's Press - Minotaur Books
Pub Date May 19, 2015

The first thing that emerges from this book is the atmosphere of a private island, where everyone knows each other, where no one is truly free. This oppressive atmosphere that makes people to always stay within the bounds of what is acceptable in the community, where everyone knows the lives of others, their story, their past, their mistakes...

So naturally when something horrible happens, the community tends first to deny the evidence because otherwise their lives would break into pieces. Then, at some point, it's no longer possible to deny the facts and there, Sharon Bolton reproduced perfectly the suspicion, the looks, the whispers, the gossip that follow the disappearance of children. She writes with love and a lot of insight on these small communities. It's very well done.


The characters are very well written and quickly become members of our own community, we feel included, we know them. The author, in the same way she describes the community is very good to make us feel the emotions of her characters. We understand Catrin's distress and sometimes hatred, Rachel's  guilt, Callum's love. After the disappearance of her children Catrin locked herself in her despair, while her husband, got a new life. And the way those two survived the loss of their children is very realistic, very fair and humane.

As for the story, no complaints. Suspicion falls on different characters, we believe in it every time, reasons abound. The creeping insanity in the population and among the tourists on the island are very realistic (unfortunately I would say). Some scenes reminiscent of those that we have all seen on the news and bring weight to the plot, well played Sharon! The end is really unexpected, I never discovered the identity of the culprit.

The blurb

In such a small community as the Falkland Islands, a missing child is unheard of. In such a dangerous landscape it can only be a terrible tragedy, surely...

When another child goes missing, and then a third, it's no longer possible to believe that their deaths were accidental, and the villagers must admit that there is a murderer among them. Even Catrin Quinn, a damaged woman living a reclusive life after the accidental deaths of her own two sons a few years ago, gets involved in the searches and the speculation.

And suddenly, in this wild and beautiful place that generations have called home, no one feels safe and the hysteria begins to rise.

But three islanders--Catrin, her childhood best friend, Rachel, and her ex-lover Callum--are hiding terrible secrets. And they have two things in common: all three of them are grieving, and none of them trust anyone, not even themselves.

In Little Black Lies, her most shocking and engaging suspense novel to date, Sharon Bolton will keep the reader guessing until the very last page.

In a nutshell

A great novel, as oppressive as small communities, well-written characters, it's a 4/5 for me.

Disclaimer: An e-galley of this title was provided to me by the publisher. No review was promised and the above is an unbiased review of the novel.

The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier

St. Martin's Press

Minotaur Books; Reprint edition (Aug. 12 2014)

482 pages - 29.41 $

Frozen is the first novel by a former worker in the French customs administration. His book was widely praised by the press when released in France in 2011 and he released a second book Le Cercle in 2012 in which me meet back with the same character, Servaz a literate and sensitive cop.

The blurb

A suspenseful and chilling murder mystery set in a high-security asylum for the criminally insane and the snowy mountains of the French Pyrenees

The first victim is a horse: its headless, flayed body hangs suspended from the edge of a frozen cliff. On the same day as the gruesome discovery takes place, Diane Berg, a young psychiatrist starts her first job at a high security asylum for the criminally insane, just a few miles away. She is baffled by the slightly unorthodox methods the asylums's director uses, and then greatly alarmed when she realizes that drugs are disappearing from within the fortified institution while someone seems to be slipping out at night. 

Commandant Martin Servaz, a charismatic, Toulouse city cop fond of quoting Latin, can’t believe he has been called out over the death of an animal. But there is something disturbing about this crime that he cannot ignore. Then DNA from one of the most notorious inmates of the asylum, a highly intelligent former prosecutor who is accused of killing and raping several women, is found on the corpse... and a few days later the first human murder takes place. 

Servaz and his colleague, the mysterious Irene Ziegler, must use all their skill to solve the terrifying mystery, in The Frozen Dead by Bernard Minier.

What's good about it ?

The atmosphere is really oppressive. Everything is cold, white (because of the snow) or gray or ugly. The suspects include prisoners locked up in an asylum for the most horrific killers. There are a lot of strange people. This creates a rather morbid and creepy feel it must be said. In my case, it was too much. Each time a character takes the road to the asylum or the place of the first crime we're entitled to the overwhelming feelings of that character - sinister course - about the surrounding nature, the road and his feeling of discomfort or fear. So, admittedly, it helps to feel the sensation of discomfort. Yet to live in Quebec (which is not a country but a winter!), I mostly meet people who love their country and think that winter are beautiful with its snowy landscapes. I think it would have been more realistic to include some positive people, right? 

The story is well put together. There's even a twist towards the end that blew me away. The investigation is realistically resolved, the explanations stand and even the escape of a character suggests a possible sequel without a frustrating cliffhanger. The only concern is that the book is a bit long. That's a lot of pages for a thriller and it's very difficult to keep a steady pace as long. So to fill the pages, it is easier to write description (of feelings, landscapes, mundane acts...) This is where - in my case - the author loses me and I start skipping parts to find the dialogue or the action. Now I know that some readers enjoy taking their time in a story, they like to take the full measure of the atmosphere and decor. So, dear reader, if that's your case, this is the book for you. 

And what about the characters? Servaz the literate and sensitive cop is a little too sensitive for my liking, he is afraid of so many things that it's a miracle he's a cop! As for his way of reciting Latin sentences at all costs, I must say it's déjà vu and a little too cliche for my taste. It must be said that there are still several cliche in the characters but that doesn't spoil the story. Still, Servaz is a smart cop who leads good deductions and his team of geek cop is quite endearing. So it's a character that we'll like to follow.

In a nutshell

A well-crafted first novel, a story and an atmosphere murky at will but a story a tad longish, it's a 3/5 for me.

Disclaimer: An e-galley of this title was provided to me by the publisher. No review was promised and the above is an unbiased review of the novel.

Bone Dust White - Karin Salvaggio's first book

by Karin Salvalaggio

St. Martin's Press - Minotaur Books (May 13, 2014)
304 pages - 15.80 $

Someone is knocking at the door to Grace Adams’s house and won’t stop. Grace thinks she knows who it is, but when she looks out her bedroom window, she sees a woman she doesn’t recognize walking on the trails behind her home. The woman isn’t alone for long before a man emerges from the dark of the surrounding woods and stabs her, then retreats into the shadows, leaving her to die in the snow. Frantic, Grace calls the police but knows they’ll never arrive in time, so she herself goes to the woman and is shocked to find she’s not a stranger—and that only raises more questions.

Badly shocked, Grace is taken to the hospital, and Detective Macy Greeley is called back to the small town of Collier, Montana, where she worked a case once before. She needs to track down the killer and find out what the murder has to do with Grace, a troubled young woman whose harrowing past may have finally come in from the cold. But the town of Collier is just as hard-bitten now as it was years ago, and Macy will have to reopen old wounds as she investigates a murder that looks like it took eleven years to come to pass.

Karin Salvalaggio’s outstanding crime fiction debut, Bone Dust White, is an absolutely stunning work that signals the entrance of a major new talent.

What's about that book?

This is a first novel for Karin Salvalaggio and having read a first few books of authors, I must say it's pretty good. Even if sometimes the scenes follow without much transition which can be confusing, the story unfolds smoothly and continuously.

I enjoyed the well made depiction of ​​the city of Collier which main source of income seems to come from meth labs. It reveals the flip side of what makes the greatness of the United States. Here it's abject poverty, quarter with unfinished homes, rows of trailers, different traffic organized by truck drivers, hard people who prefer to remain silent and helpless victims. It's gritty, oppressive and depressing and it makes me feel awfully glad I don't live in such a place (which exists unfortunately).

There are a whole slew of characters in the book but we mainly follow Macy, the detective and Jared, the first paramedic on scene. These two are ex and their relationship, between memory, regret and acceptance, is well brought. I still have to admit that I think Jared takes up too much place in a detective novel that is supposed to be about a new detective, Macy. Especially as she teames up with the local Sheriff. Jared goes along with Macy in her investigation and we follow him out of the investigation, as if he were the main character. Certainly, he's the link between Macy and Grace - touching and all in fragility - but it seems to me that normally civilians do not accompany the police  during an investigation and he takes too much space.

The story is very gloomy, like the city, the atmosphere and the weather (freezing). Complicity are multiple and the silence - so strong in small communities - hinders Macy's work. Between disillusioned victims who no longer believe in the police and thugs who take advantage of their silence Macy has trouble finding the answers to her questions. For those who love novels where the characters are the heart of the story it's perfect. Here, the plot is mainly used to show the misery of small-town  in America and the decay of the human being. Quite black, but very human at the same time. A little regret, some questions - that are not relevant to the investigation - remain unresolved.

In a nutshell

A first novel altogether successful, a well writen context, the relations between characters are realistic and take the upper hand in this novel. This is a 3.5 / 5 for me.

Warning: An e- galley of this title was provided to me by the publisher. No review has been promised and chronic above is an unbiased review of the novel.