Review of The Dark Room by Minette Walters

Or Minette Walters Number 7 for me. I’m not saying her books are formulaic but they do seem to follow a similar psychological pattern. Having said that they are enjoyable and do keep you working throughout the story to try and nail the real culprit.

This one starts with the main character, Jane Kingsley or Jinx lying in a special clinic with amnesia just having been involved in a car accident when it appears that she tried to kill herself. That’s not all,it would appear she’d tried to gas herself in her garage.

Of course, two bodies are soon found in a ditch in a Hampshire woodland. This is Leo Wallader and Meg Harris both friends of Jinx. Indeed, Leo was her fiancé until recently when he had announaced that He and Meg had got together and were going to get married.

Into this pot you can stir in Jinx’s gangster type father, wastrel brothers, alcoholic stepmother.
You can see that things are set up nicely to find potential killers.

Of course, 10 years before, Jinx’s first husband, was brutally slain in his art gallery by an assailant still not apprehended.

The plot twists and turns and when you think you’ve nailed the potential assailant, you’re persuaded against that solution. In some ways, the guilty party comes out of nowhere in true whodunit style. At the end of the day it is believable but still somewhat contrived.

I will continue reading Minette but do feel that I’ve read her best books now and don’t think they will live up to The Ice House or The Sculptress.