Customer Reviews

The Breaker

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

If you have never read a Minette Walters books before, this is an excellent introduction to her writing. If you have read any of her other books, you will not be disappointed with "The Breaker".

From the moment you settle down and read the first chapter, you will find an exploration that you won't want to put down. The mastery of Walters' style is shown here as the story quickly devolves down to only two main suspects, yet the suspense is held to the very end.

Definitely a miss-your-stop commuting read!

i have now read all of minette walter's books that i could get my hands on, and this was definitely my favorite. everytime you think you know who did it, something changes your mind. i also enjoyed how the different characters evolved throughout the novel. this one (like her others) i couldn't put down til i got to the end. i can't wait til she comes out with another book! one of my favorite things about her books is the way she writes statements in different typefaces, so you always differentiate who is narrating. another is that she always has a map at the front, which i tend to refer back to, just to keep a more accurate track of what's going on. i highly recommend this book.

Minette Walters offers us the tale of a young woman whose nude and battered body is found washed ashore from the sea while her young toddler daughter is found wandering alone in a nearby village. As events unfold we learn about the suspects: her obsessive research scientist husband and the self-obsessed actor who summoned police to her body. Throw in pornography, drugs, scuzzy friends, and a blossoming romance for the local policeman and you've got the recipe for a well-rounded whodunit.

This was a relatively quick read, but, as with all murder mysteries, details were important. I confess I wasn't certain about the killer's identity until the end. The plot was evenly paced and the personalities of the various characters were well presented.

This was a very well crafted mystery; gripping, suspenseful, horrific in parts. As Walters narrowed the suspects down very early in the book, I found that I spend the rest of the book enjoying her development of the characters. A nice twist!

From the opening chapter of Kate trying to swim, wondering why he broke all of her fingers, I truly expected good things from this book. Wrong. Walters tries to keep you guessing between the two men, but telegraphs which one is the killer. At one point its hinted that it could be the third guy, then the case is built strongly at the end for this unexpected turn of events -- only to dissapoint the reader by revealing that the murderer was the obvious choice all along. The victim was totally unsympathetic. The sexual perversion was far from "shocking." The rape -- if that's what it was -- was not "brutal" but closer to consentual sex. And the broken fingers really had nothing to do with the story -- the reason revealed in an "oh, by the way," fashion by the author. The love story (and Maggie's marital history) was so uninteresting, its inclusion was an annoyance. The "twist" with the 15 year old was thrown in at the end for no reason that I could see. No one in the book was likable, interesting, or compelling in any way. I was glad to reach the end, not to find out the killer, but so I could move on to something else. I bought this in hardback based on the NY Times and Kirkus reviews, which were good. The book is a mere shadow of the story described in the reviews. Next time I'll rely on your readers before wasting my money.

I agree with most of the previous reviewers that the mystery wasn't too difficult to figure out. I think the present book, "The Breaker," is a wonderful read if you like good writing, but the mystery is a bit stilted. However, I think Minette Walters is a gifted writer. Her characters (both major and minor) jump off the page and the dialogue is believable. In all of her books, she's great at developing her characters. I particularly like the fact that all of them are flawed, even the protagonists. What's really good: She has no reoccurring characters through her books. They're all new and different - a new cast of characters to discover and enjoy.

This book is quite well-written, and keeps up the mystery and suspense for quite a long time. It shows how dogged police work, and often just plain luck, combines to solve a mysterious death. My one quibble was that, after all the convoluted twists and turns in the plot, the ending seemed rather rushed. Other than that, it's worth reading, and will keep your interst from beginning until the end.

This author has settled down into a thoroughly reliablethriller writer.

The plotting in this book is compelling although hardly any of the characters are at all appealing. The plot revolves around the sad and tawdry sex lives of the main protagonists and the author achieves this without descending into tawdriness herself.

Thoroughly recommeded.

I am a big fan of Minette Walters and her latest book does not disappoint. From the opening scene in the novel I was hooked.

The title - The Breaker comes from one of the opening scenes - where a woman is murdered and the killer breaks her fingers. Her body then washes up on shore and I just can't stop imagining her broken fingers waving in the surf. I still get chills.

I just can't wait to see what Minette brings us next!

Her latest leaves a little, okay a lot, to be desired. It took me over 50 pages before I was even remotely interested in the characters involved and I had a difficult time keeping track of who was who. I would recommend skipping this book and reading one of her other delicious mysteries such as The Ice House or The Scold's Bridle. She is an excellent mystery writer who keeps you guessing 'til the end but i guess she lost a little of her magic in this last one!