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    The Devil's Feather: A Novel
    The Devil's Feather: A Novel
    The Devil's Feather: A Novel
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Devil's Feather: A Novel

    Written by Minette Walters

    Narrated by Josephine Bailey

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In each of her ten critically acclaimed and hugely popular novels, Minette Walters has explored the dark terrain of the human psyche to give us thrillers of exceptional psychological complexity and suspense. Now, in The Devil's Feather, she gives us her most unexpected and electrifying novel yet.

    In 2002, five women are discovered barbarously murdered in Sierra Leone. Reuters Africa correspondent Connie Burns suspects a British mercenary: a man who seems to turn up in every war-torn corner of Africa, whose reputation for violence and brutality is well-founded and widely known. Connie's suspicions that he's using the chaos of war to act out sadistic, misogynistic fantasies fall on deaf ears-but she's determined to expose him and his secret.

    The consequences are devastating.

    Connie encounters the man again in Baghdad, but almost immediately she's taken hostage. Released after three desperate days, terrified and traumatized by the experience-fearing that she will never again be the person she once was-Connie retreats to England. She is bent on protecting herself by withholding information about her abduction. But secluded in a remote rented house-where the jealously guarded history of her landlady's family seems to mirror her own fears-she knows that it is only a matter of time before her nightmares become real.

    With its sinuous plot, its acutely drawn characters, and its blistering suspense, The Devil's Feather keeps us riveted from first to last. It is a dazzling reminder of why Publishers Weekly has dubbed Minette Walters "Agatha Christie with the gloves off."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateOct 17, 2006
    ISBN9781400173143
    The Devil's Feather: A Novel
    Author

    Minette Walters

    Minette Walters is England’s bestselling female crime writer. She has written many novels, including The Ice House and The Scold's Bridle, and has won the CWA John Creasey Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award and two CWA Gold Daggers for Fiction. Minette Walters lives in Dorset with her husband and two children.

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    Reviews for The Devil's Feather

    3.5/5

    15 ratings12 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This is a bit different than the usual Minette Walters book, not that they're all similar, but this one, at its heart, is not a mystery. The narrator knows what happened and she's revealing it damn slowly. The suspense comes from... but, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.Connie Burns is a war correspondent. During her posting in Sierra Leone, she became convinced that a British mercenary is the man who raped and killed five women. Her efforts to prove it go nowhere, but two years later, when she sees him in Iraq, training local police, and using a different name, she resumes her pursuit of justice for his victims. Until she's kidnapped, presumably by one of the Iraqi terror groups. Upon her release, she claims she has no idea who her abductors were, then returns to England, where she retreats to a rural town and a rental house that's fairly isolated. But along with her demons, and her fears, she has to contend with a local doctor, and Jess, a neighboring woman lacking in social skills, but someone who isn't afraid to speak her mind. As Connie, living there under an assumed name, gets to know Jess, she gets drawn into the lives of Jess, the daughter of the elderly woman whose house she's renting, and the odd events that led to the elderly homeowner being placed in a nursing home. But this mystery, while compelling, is more a device to help draw Connie out of herself. If only her demons would let her. Because he's still out there, a threat to her parents, and to Connie, herself, unless she can find the will to fight back.Walters excels at psychological suspense. Her weaving in real events in Iraq gives this book a special sense of urgency, placing it more in the real world than most of her others. And yet, I can't consider this a mystery. It's simply a literary tour de force by one of my favorite authors.
    • 4/5
      Wir haben das Hörbuch gehört, auf dem wohl im Gegensatz zur Buchfassung ein Teil gekürzt ist. Das Hörbuch setzt ein, als die englische Journalistin Connie Burns sich in das Dorf Winterbourne Barton in Dorset zurückzieht. Sie leidet unter Panikattacken und wird verfolgt: Die vorausgehende Geschichte, in der sie als Journalistin in Krisengebieten einem Söldner auf die Spur kommt, der systematisch Frauen vergewaltigt und tötet, wird nur in Rückblenden erzählt. Connie befand sich drei Tage in der Hand dieses Psychopathen und kommt dann frei - nun verfolgt er sie erneut. Dieser Teil der Handlung ist etwas unlogisch- wieso hat der Täter nicht auch Connie getötet, wieso verfolgt er sie nun? Minette Walters vermischt die Handlung nun mit der Geschichte von Connies Nachbarin Jess, die ebenfalls unter Panikattacken leidet: Ihre gesamte Familie wurde bei einem Autounfall getötet. Jess gab daraufhin ihr Kunststudium auf und übernahm die elterliche Farm. Die beiden so unterschiedlichen Frauen eint also das gleiche Schicksal: Sie leiden unter Angst und Panik, sie sind Opfer- obwohl sie eigentlich sehr stark sind. Nicht immer ist es ganz geglückt, dass Walters diese englische Familiengeschichte mit dem Entführungsfall mischt. Dennoch ist das Buch sehr spannend und hat uns gut gefallen. Wir haben viel darüber diskutiert!
    • 5/5
      The Devil’s Feather focuses on the ease with which serious crimes can go virtually unnoticed when committed in war zones. Connie Burns, a British reporter who works in warzones, begins to notice a pattern of crimes in Iraq which echo similar crimes committed in Sierra Leone many years previously. Connie tracks down the killer in Iraq, only to have the tables turned on her. After her return to England, Connie is a broken, terrified woman with the killer still on her trail. Very scary, very suspenseful.
    • 1/5
      This book is described as ‘electrifying’, I can’t really agree with that. It moved along rather slowly, more character development then plot, a side plot that was detracting and unnecessary and an unsatisfying ending. Connie states she doesn’t remember exactly what happened, but her statements (Her mother mentions a conversation Connie had with her father, one you never heard of till then) make you wonder if that is true and as the reader, I was left with more questions then answers. For a true crime book, that is often the case, when I read a novel, I like more answers and less questions. I would hesitate before reading another of her books.
    • 4/5
      Not one of her best - but good ednough by anyone elses standards.
    • 3/5
      Not one of Minette's best and not a patch on the Sculptress. For once I found Walters' charachters a bit cliched.
    • 4/5
      Crisp writing, well drawn characters and suspenseful plot line, though there are a few cliques, though to name them would be a spoiler. Premise is that a 30-something Reuters reporter, Connie Burns, has gone to ground somewhere in Dorset after she was abducted in Baghdad. She refuses to answer press questions and, in some cases, just doesn't know the answer. Question- is her abduction related questions about at spree of rapes and murders in the war torn aftermaths in various African civil wars. She has put it out that these murders are not part of the mob violence that was part of the wars, but the act of a foreign mercenary. She finds a a peaceful English village in which she hopes she can lie low There she makes friends with Jess, the village eccentric, a rough spoken woman with rumors buzzing around her like flies. And then there is the youngish doctor who may or may not be involved with Jess. Or may or may not be involved with the landlord's grasping daughter.
      Or....
    • 4/5
      First I was a little bit confused because this story was starting in Africa some years earlier when a young lady got abused by an evil one. Therefore she was looking for him to take revenge. She was following his track of murderous violence because he always was killing prostitutes in the same way. When she was back in England she didn't report her abuse directly but was working in one way or the other one with a detective. Finally the rapist found her but because there was also a sideline of evile activities in the extended family nobody is really concerned what had happened with the rapist who was found dead in the sea.
    • 4/5
      I admit that I decided to download this from audible.com because it was on sale and that I’d liked other books from this author, not because of the description. I didn’t even read it so when we’re introduced to Connie, war correspondent in Sierra Leone, I cringed inwardly. My head just wasn’t in a good state to be on the receiving end of a politically correct novel full of white guilt. There’s a place for those novels that showcase the almost hidden atrocities committed in African nations, but I just can’t take one right now. Luckily the author doesn’t go there. Oh sure we get to understand a bit of the underbelly of reporting in war-torn countries, but it’s not the focus and no one preaches.Connie herself is a bit of an enigma. I still don’t know what drives her to her unconventional and harrowing profession. She is driven though and it’s her determination to see a probable killer brought to justice that gets her into trouble. Her video recorded humiliation at his hands keeps her from talking and after her very short captivity she eschews her fellow journalists and goes into hiding under an assumed name.It’s at this location that most of the action occurs. She meets Jess, a strange and dramatic neighbor who she immediately likes despite Jess’s abrupt and somewhat rude behavior. She also meets Peter, eligible bachelor and local doctor. She doesn’t like him so much and remains skeptical of his bona fides. She also meets the ostensible owner of the house and finds out she isn’t what she seems. Like any good reporter, when she finds the edge of a mystery, she just has to pry it up and have a look. Although she is caught up in figuring out the family she’s renting from, her obsessive worry over her captor coming for her again nearly consumes her. She’s paralyzed by every noise in the unfamiliar house and constantly goes from door to window to door checking and re-checking locks. This part of the book seemed over long and melodramatic to me. The constant hand wringing and panic attacks got to be a bit much considering there wasn’t any forward motion to go with them. The on-again-off-again relationship with Jess was good though and Madeline’s deceptions. Despite Connie’s precaution against being found, she’s convinced he’ll find her even though she’s barely said anything to the authorities about how he is or what he did to her. Through emails the situation is revealed however and when he does come for her, she’s more than ready. The ending is somewhat ambiguous although I’m not so unimaginative that I think there could have been any doubt as to where McKenzie ended up.
    • 3/5
      Interesting novel. I found the ending deliberately ambiguous (what did happen in the 30 minutes McKenzie was left bound and injured, did he escape and die in a cliff fall or did they put him in the well?) I think it is up to the reader to decide, the clues allow you to believe either way - revenge or destruction by his own perversity (there was a quote earlier in the book as to how you end up depends on what you do)? Do we believe what we want to believe about the characters? Is Minette Walters giving us the choice? In "The Ice House" she gives us a quote about revenge being wild justice that should be rooted out, is that what happened here? I don't find her writting great, but her ideas are fascinating and challenging. I will remember forever the quote from Thucydides - "The secret of happiness is freedom; the secret of freedom, courage" - and Alan Collins's father's addendum that "courage is about being scared to death and not showing it". I felt the 2nd storyline about elder abuse something of a distraction. Read it for the ideas!
    • 4/5
      When five women are brutally murdered in Sierra Leone, Reuters journalist Connie Burns comes to believe that the culprit is a foreigner whom she recognises as someone she met, under a different name, in Kinshasa. Two years later she recognises the same man in Iraq, again living under a different name. Voicing her suspicions to colleagues results in Connie being kidnapped for 3 days. When she is released apparently unharmed, she refuses to speak about her ordeal and returns to England, where she lives as a recluse in Devon. Connie decides to keep investigating the man, and he comes after her. I found this a difficult read. The story is told through emails and accounts given to others in interviews. As the reader I never felt included in direct disclosures and the events were never really narrated for my benefit. There are two major stories intertwined and by the end I was impatient for it to finish. I felt as my brain had been exercised enough.
    • 4/5
      I'm a big fan of Minette Walters. Saying this is not quite her best novel is the same as saying it's an excellent novel of psychological suspense.