The Dark Room [Hardcover]

Minette Walters (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 1996

Hospitalized after an alleged suicide attempt, Jinx Kingsley, only daughter of millionaire Adam Kingsley, struggles to recover her memory with the help of Dr. Alan Protheroe, only to come face to face with a terrifying reality. 100,000 first printing. $200,000 ad/promo. Lit Guild & Mystery Guild Main.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The author of the award-winning novels The Sculptress and The Scold's Bridle weaves a spellbinding tale of suspense and psychological terror. When heiress Jinx Kingsley is found unconscious in the wreckage of a mysterious car accident, the police suspect a suicide attempt. Suffering from amnesia, Jinx is placed in an exclusive private clinic, where she struggles to regain her memory with the help of Dr. Alan Protheroe -- but the memories that begin to surface are terrifying and desperate. A complex, nontraditional British mystery.

From Publishers Weekly

British suspense writer Walters, each of whose previous books (The Ice House, The Sculptress and The Scold's Bridle) has won an award, now has a new publisher and a big promotional push behind her. Unfortunately, the new book is her weakest to date?overplotted and rather unconvincing. It rests on an interesting premise, however: its heroine, Jinx Kingsley, who has been found drunk and disoriented on an abandoned airfield in Wiltshire after apparently trying to kill herself by wrecking her car, is suspected of several murders?but can't, after her accident, remember anything that happened for several vital days. Her husband had been mysteriously killed some years before?and now her fiance and the girlfriend with whom he has been cheating on Jinx are missing. Can her powerful millionaire father be involved? And what about the man who is savagely attacking prostitutes in the area? As Jinx tries, in a local clinic run by sympathetic Dr. Alan Protheroe, to recover her memory and exorcise dark terrors hovering at the edge of her mind, several well-observed police investigators dig out fragments of her story. But that story is so complicated, and filled with such a welter of walk-on characters, many of them ultimately insignificant, that the reader loses patience. Jinx herself is not made sufficiently sympathetic to win interest, her growing affection for Dr. Protheroe seems half-hearted and the ultimate murderer, when finally unmasked, comes right out of left field. Walters is highly talented, but perhaps she is working too fast. 75,000 first printing; major ad/promo; Literary Guild main selection.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 381 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1ST edition (March 5, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399140786
• ISBN-13: 978-0399140785
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,401,636 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Minette is a Master, December 2, 1999

By 

Karen Bierman Hirsh (Greenwich, CT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dark Room (Mass Market Paperback)

I have read all of Minette Walter's books and I am constantly surprised. With each book her writing gets stronger and the plots get even more interesting.

She truly is a master of suspense. I find that I can't put her books down. Walters was able to take the amnesia plot and weave it in a way that makes it seem as if it were a new plot twist.

While Minette does not use repeating characters in her novels she never seems to have a problem getting her reader immediately feeling involved with the characters or the story. I highly recommend reading all of her books.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Totally engrossing, August 15, 2002

By 

Beverley Strong (Australia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dark Room (Mass Market Paperback)

I found this to be an engrossing book, filled with all the necessary ingredients to make up a really good thriller-murder mystery.There have been 3 hideous murders, the first one 10 years previously and the other 2 committed in exactly the same fashion.All 3 victime were closely connected to Jinx Kingsley, daughter of a former crime boss, now become respectable and very wealthy.Jinx has a stepmother and 2 half brothers, all of whom are very undesirable types and who are involved in a number of shady dealings.Jinx is thought to have attempted suicide and is a suspect in the ghastly murders. A deranged and dangerous murderer is on the loose and the police are sure that everything points to her and her family. I did think that the final solution could have been reached a few chapters earlier,but all in all, it was a good and absorbing read.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unlocking the Mind, July 7, 2002

By 

Untouchable (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dark Room (Mass Market Paperback)

The story revolves around Jane `Jinx' Kingsley, the daughter of a millionaire businessman and, until very recently, fiancée to another well-to-do gentleman. She has just been involved in a car accident, which looks very much like an attempted suicide. To top things off she's suffering amnesia as a result of the accident and can't explain the events leading up to the crash.

It's the all-important amnesia that is the key to this mystery/thriller as the police are desperate to piece together events leading up to the accident. They want to know whether Jinx was so distraught over the break-up with her fiancé that she tried to kill herself, or was there some other motive at work. They become even more desperate to get inside Jinx's mind when a couple of bodies are discovered dumped in suspicious circumstances.

From this point we are taken on a somewhat surreal journey through Jinx's life as police, and Jinx herself for that matter, try to work out what actually happened. Had she attempted suicide or was it staged by her to look as though someone tried to murder her. Or was it something more sinister, a murder attempt made to look like suicide.

Minette Walters has written a very interesting story of intrigue providing us with plenty of possible scenarios and suspects. As readers, we are displayed with a picture at the start of the book that is very incomplete and blurry. As the story continues, the picture is gradually filled in and starts to become sharper and easy to understand. It was very well done by the author. Another aspect of the book I found particularly interesting was the character of Adam Kingsley, Jinx's father. He never actually made an appearance in the book, yet his presence is almost overbearing thanks to the regular references to him. By keeping him at a distance to us he seemed much more menacing.

Although I thought this was quite a good story, it tended to ramble on a little in the middle and so, fell flat, before it was gathered up again for a strong ending.