The Shape of Snakes by Minette Walters


Synopsis :

 This New York Times Notable Book begins on a rainy winter night. It takes hours for a black woman known as Mad Annie to die in the gutter. It will take 20 years for the woman who found her to shape her neighbors' racism, the indifference of the police, and her own rage into the truth.
November 1978. Britain is on strike. The dead lie unburied, rubbish piles in the streets – and somewhere in West London a black woman dies in a rain-soaked gutter.
Her passing would have gone unmourned but for the young woman who finds her and who believes - apparently against reason – that Annie was murdered. But whatever the truth about Annie – whether she was as mad as her neighbours claimed, whether she lived in squalor as the police said – something passed between her and Mrs Ranelagh in the moment of death which binds this one woman to her cause for the next twenty years.
But why is Mrs Ranelagh so convinced it was murder when by her own account Annie died without speaking? And why would any woman spend twenty painstaking years uncovering the truth – unless her reasons are personal . . . ?


 This is what I say :

 This is my first encounter with Minette Walters.  I was actually not very keen to read this copy which I have in my collection as I have many other titles but I am glad I decided to.

 I like The Shape of Snakes.  I like the story and I like the way it's written.  There are press releases, letters, memos, emails,  etc which supports the flow of the story.  The story by itself might not be that intriguing but it's the way the author wrote it that made it interesting.

 I also love the ending after all has been wrapped up and the murderer is revealed but at the end, tehre's a spin which made one wonders....did they identify the correct murderer or could it have been the other person.  I just love it and I really wish I have someone to discuss this with.

 Such a wonderful read.  I have another of her title, The Chameleon's Shadow which I am currently reading.  The review will be up pretty soon.



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