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musingsofachaoticmind's review against another edition
mysterious
slow-paced
1.0
Honestly, please don't read this book. It is a waste of time. I am unsure why I read it. Somewhere I was hoping for a twist or a turn or just some MYSTERY but this book fell short in delivering a good murder mystery.
The novel begins and ends in the first few pages. The rest of the 380 -ish pages is extra and unnecessary.
The novel begins and ends in the first few pages. The rest of the 380 -ish pages is extra and unnecessary.
bernab's review against another edition
3.0
At first I was a bit bored but it get better as the suspect changed and changed back again and again.
donnaj71's review against another edition
3.0
Two young brothers spotted a naked woman laying on the beach. They were spying on her with binoculars when they accidentally dropped them down the side of the cliff. The woman didn´t move and they realized something was wrong. She wasn´t just sun bathing, she was dead. They ran to find help and found a man who called the police. The police discovered the woman had been raped and drowned. They start questioning everyone that was there to try to identify the woman and also find her killer. Later, at a nearby marina, a blond toddler was found wandering around alone. An older couple brings her to the police and they begin trying to find her parents. They put a picture of the little girl on the news in hopes that someone will recognize her and someone does. An older woman is sure that little girl is her grand-daughter and phones her son. He doesn´t really think it could be his daughter because she would be so far from home but when his wife doesn´t answer his calls he starts to worry.
I had a hard time getting into this book. After the body is found and the investigation begins it started to drag for me.
I had a hard time getting into this book. After the body is found and the investigation begins it started to drag for me.
smeets_books's review against another edition
5.0
My first Minette Walters book and a great one. She left you hanging right until the end though didn't crowd the reader with too many suspects. Liked the sub-plot with the romance too.
celiaedf12's review against another edition
3.0
A typical Minette Walters thriller, really - well written, suspenseful, and yet not my favourite of her books. I was a bit disappointed at the murderer and the reasons, and not particularly interested in the sub-plot love story between one of the investigating policemen and a witness with whom he has a history.
xterminal's review against another edition
4.0
Minette Walters, The Breaker (Putnam, 1999)
[originally posted 7Jul2000]
I kept looking at the dadaesque, semi-erotic cover of the novel trying to figure out whether to pick it up or not. Finally, I decided to sink the cash and give it a shot.
Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover.
From page one, this is no ordinary mystery. It sounds like one, if you attempt to boil it down to its component parts—a woman's body washes up on shore in a secluded cove on the south coast of England, with the two main suspects being the person who reported the discovery to the police and the woman's husband. But Walters mixes more into the book with deftness, weaving subplots in and out of one another so skillfully that even as one gets distracted by them one is forced to just sit back and watch the process. As each seemingly insignificant thing is wrapped into the whole mess at the end, the reader is left all too often wondering why it didn't register back when it was first mentioned—or if it DID register, why the piece of the jigsaw didn't fall into place before.
One other thing that sent this into the stratosphere, where mysteries are concerned, is that Walters has so many loose ends by the time you get to the final fifty pages that you know there's no way she's going to be able to follow formula and spend the last part of the book concentrating on the crime that started it all. And she doesn't. And it's brilliant.
Best mystery I've read since Parker released All Our Yesterdays six years ago. ****
[originally posted 7Jul2000]
I kept looking at the dadaesque, semi-erotic cover of the novel trying to figure out whether to pick it up or not. Finally, I decided to sink the cash and give it a shot.
Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover.
From page one, this is no ordinary mystery. It sounds like one, if you attempt to boil it down to its component parts—a woman's body washes up on shore in a secluded cove on the south coast of England, with the two main suspects being the person who reported the discovery to the police and the woman's husband. But Walters mixes more into the book with deftness, weaving subplots in and out of one another so skillfully that even as one gets distracted by them one is forced to just sit back and watch the process. As each seemingly insignificant thing is wrapped into the whole mess at the end, the reader is left all too often wondering why it didn't register back when it was first mentioned—or if it DID register, why the piece of the jigsaw didn't fall into place before.
One other thing that sent this into the stratosphere, where mysteries are concerned, is that Walters has so many loose ends by the time you get to the final fifty pages that you know there's no way she's going to be able to follow formula and spend the last part of the book concentrating on the crime that started it all. And she doesn't. And it's brilliant.
Best mystery I've read since Parker released All Our Yesterdays six years ago. ****
prosewhore's review against another edition
5.0
Fantastic psychological thriller. Could not put it down !