Customer Reviews

The Sculptress

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an intriguing, well written mystery which garnered the 1994 Edgar Award for best novel of the year for British writer, Minette Walters, who has written quite a number of excellent books. She is a writer in the tradition of that other great British novelist, Ruth Rendell, known also as Barbara Vine. The comparison by those who are familiar with the works of both Ms. Walters and Ms. Rendell is inescapable.

This book revolves around two main stories that become by necessity intertwined. One is that of a morbidly obese, young woman, Olive Martin, who is imprisoned for the brutal and grisly murders of her mother, Gwen, and beautiful, younger sister, Amber, whose butchered bodies shocked even the most jaded of folks. On the eve of trial, Olive made a full confession to the crime and received a prison sentence of not less than twenty-five years for her butchery. Known in prison as "The Sculptress", she passes the time making miniature, carved, wax images, a delicate and sensitive pastime for one with a reputation for such primal savagery.

Enter Rosalind "Roz" Leigh, a thirties something author suffering from writer's block, who accepts a commission to write about the Olive Martin case. After meeting Olive, she becomes intrigued by her, finding her to be other than what she had expected, and a symbiotic relationship develops between the two. As she delves into the facts of the murder case, and as her interviews with Olive reveal, all is not quite what it seems. The more that Roz sorts through the facts and the more people that she interviews who were in some way associated with the Martin family, the more she becomes convinced that a miscarriage of justice has occurred and that the wrong person is paying a horrific price for the grisly murders of Gwen and Amber.

Someone, however, does not wish her to dig too deeply. With the aid of a former police sergeant, Hal Hawksley, an attractive, though conflicted, young man who is now her new love interest and was also the officer who arrested Olive for the murders, Roz stays the course and perserveres in her inquiry. What she discovers is a complex morass of human indifference, greed, and passion that makes for a compelling and well crafted mystery.

Minette Walters' The Sculptress, which deservedly won the 1994 Edgar Award for best mystery novel, is that rare book that deftly interweaves many different elements into one convenient package without sacrificing any of its remarkable qualities or losing sight of its identity. It's a book as multi-faceted as it is satisfying, and as an English mystery it packs a surprisingly savage bite.

Rosalind Leigh is a likeable young journalist with a tragic past and an uncertain destiny who is sent to interview Olive Martin, a monstrously obese woman sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for the grisly murders and mutilation of her mother and younger sister. The tension and chemistry between Roz and Olive is somewhat reminiscent of that between Starling and Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. It soon becomes clear, however, that Walters is taking a different and more ambitious direction than Harris. As Roz researches Olive's dark past, she uncovers numerous inconsistencies that escaped the attention of the police, her defense attorney, and even her tight-lipped solicitor. That and a genuine liking for the mysterious "Sculptress" are enough to persuade her that Olive is innocent, and is concealing more than she lets on. From there Walters, demonstrating masterful control of pace and plotting, slowly and with infinite cunning unravels a web of subtle intricacy. The details of the crime are meticulously worked out; each new plot complexity fits seamlessly into place with each subtle nuance of character in a way that reminds one of Ruth Rendell, one of the few writers who actually rivals Walters.

The characters are wonderfully engaging. Rosalind is the perfect protagonist for the contradictory reason that she is far from perfect; she is a fully rounded character whose flaws contribute as much to the story as her considerable assets. Hal Hawksley, the burly and attractive young ex-policeman who arrested Olive after the murders, is no less complex, and he makes an ideal love interest for Roz. Both people are troubled souls with considerable spunk, and their blossoming romance, mercifully unclichéd, brings a welcome humor and passion to what would otherwise be a bleak psychological thriller. Most fascinating of all is Olive Martin, a woman of incredible sensitivity and wisdom trapped in a fat and unappealing body. Side characters, like Roz's tactless friend Iris Fielding and the liberal and compassionate Sister Bridget add delightfully to the depth of the story.

The Sculptress succeeds as both a compulsively readable entertainment and as a richly rewarding mainstream novel, but like all masterworks it is far more than the sum of its parts. It's a novel worth reading for the sheer enjoyment of the prose alone. Sometimes you'll come across a line of dialogue so scathingly witty you'll find yourself laughing out loud; sometimes you'll read a passage so profound and beautifully written you have to reread it. This book made me want to thank God and Minette Walters that there are still some authors who can really write. You'll be grateful, too.

This is an intriguing story about Olive Martin, who is in prison for murdering and cutting up the bodies of her mother Gwen and her sister Amber. Enter Roz, an author who is not really interested in writing any longer. Her publisher gives her an ultimatum and an assignment to write a book about Olive and the murders. She reluctantly agrees and once she sinks her teeth into this task, she is no longer convinced that Olive really committed the murders that she has confessed to. Walters' portrayal of Olive as an obese, unkempt woman adds to the story as she allows the reader to want to believe that Olive is in fact the murderer, while at the same time, the story that Roz is unraveling could perhaps tell us otherwise.

This book won the 1994 Edgar Award for best mystery novel and it is no surprise why. The real surprise is how deft Minette Walters is at making this gruesome story come alive. It is filled with darkness, tension and sensitivity to the protagonist. Can Minette Walters write a bad book -- I don't think so. She's obviously a master of her craft.

The premise of the story was interesting and the prose makes for smooth reading. But given the award and glowing reviews, I was expecting it to be much more than above average. The ending does not floor the reader as it should, given the nature of the ending. All in all, above average but overrated. Nevertheless, I'm still game to try another book from this author in the future.

As I read all the glowing praise for Walters and her finely crafted mysteries, I have to say, I don't get it. I think she's a terrible writer. I read The Scold's Bridle when it first came out and didn't agree with the praise it had earned. But when casting about the other day for a modern mystery, I thought I'd give Walters another try with The Sculptress. It was even worse than The Scold's Bridle. The plot twists are so transparently engineered, and you could drive a truck through some of the holes. At the end, when the tension should be building, the exposition becomes confusing and story oddly boring. Throughout, her main characters are shallow, yet instantly dislikable, and their behavior is just bizarre (and I'm talking about the non-criminals). Even when she's trying to show tough tenderness between characters, it comes off more like really bad romance novel relationship, mixing violence and sexual interest in a very unpleasant way. To top it off, the dialogue is stilted and, quite often, completely uninteresting. I see very little intelligence, inventiveness, or skill here; Walters can't hold a candle to Ruth Rendell.

This was the first Minette Walters book I have read and I have bought all her others since reading The Sculptress.

The characters are well descibed and vivid, the story is a well-blended mix of mystery, emotion, fact and speculation.

Walters does not rely on a formula to help her writing output and each of her books comes across as fresh and unique.

This is the perfect book to make you look forward to a daily commute - but keep an eye out for your stop!

I must admit that I was bowled over by this book until the end. Meaning, that the end destroyed the high rating I might have given it. We spend the whole book trying to understand why the murders were committed, and also by whom, but what emerges in the end is only a possible theory. Walters still doesn't explain clearly why the mother was killed, and why both of them were so brutally slaughtered. And the last sentence invites us to rethink the whole 'solution'.

So why did I bother to read this book? When it leaves me wondering at the end who did it and why, and whether this woman is really innocent. That's the feeling we have while reading the entire novel. A good mystery should solve everything, explain all the little and big points, and this book fails big time at this.

I even re-read the parts where the final theories emerge, but they still left me hanging.

The Sculptress is a superbly plotted and terrifyingly good read from one of the UK's reigning mystery goddesses, Minette Walters. As inept as I am in composing plot synopses, I'll give it my best shot here. I apologize for its length, but rest assured I have no spoilers to diminish prospective readers' enjoyment of this novel.

After a profound personal loss, Rosalind `Roz' Leigh, an author of some renown, is finding it difficult to carry on with her writing and life in general. She's entertaining thoughts of suicide and agent and friend, Iris, would like her to get on with it, at least to assuage Roz's publisher. Reluctantly, Roz accepts the publisher's ultimatum--a book covering the grisly story of Olive Martin, who's incarcerated after confessing to the slaughter of her mother, Gwen, and her sister, Amber. Olive earned the nickname "sculptress" for having rearranged her victims' body parts after cutting them up and a later penchant for carving small wax figures in prison. Roz is put off at her initial sight of Olive. Olive is described as a "grotesque parody of a woman," and is made even more repulsive by the very gruesomeness of her crime. As the singsong rhyme of Lizzie Borden reverberates in her head, Roz soldiers on, and as she painfully coaxes bits of information from Olive, becomes convinced that Olive is innocent. What ensue are her all-consuming attempts to piece together an intricate puzzle out of the morass of characters, primary of which is Olive's dysfunctional family. Adding to the challenge is the abundance of conflicting and puzzling accounts of those whose lives were in one way or another connected to the tragedy. As if this weren't enough, she has fallen in love with Hal Hawksley, Olive's arresting officer, whose life is being threatened by thugs determined to oust him from his restaurant.

Ms. Walters' writing style is contemporary, far removed from the elegant narratives of British mystery icons like Josephine Tey or Dorothy L. Sayers (even when said icons were writing about carnage, their language was very much "drawing-room prose"). Neither is it nightmare-inducing as a good Mo Hayder novel would be, despite its subject matter. Instead, The Sculptress' lingo immediately establishes the grittiness and no-nonsense characteristics of the present day and its inhabitants. It effectively conveys (a) the various characters' human frailties, (b) Olive Martin's alienation, crippling loneliness, and disturbing cunning, and (c) the gruesomeness of the crime, but without the aid of a Dramamine. It is descriptive without being overdone. It's also a refreshing compromise for a reader like me who sometimes alternates between the extremes of classic mysteries and horror.

Ms. Walters is very much the mistress of her novel. She provides the clues when she's good and ready and not any sooner. She leaves the reader perplexed about certain details even when the reader fully comprehends the story. She offers no excuses for the ambiguity of her ending. Unlike some readers, I actually prefer this as I revisit the story in my head, hoping to infer a conclusion very near that of the authoress'. But this preference of mine is not absolute; thus, I can understand how the ambiguity would bother some readers, especially fans of neatly resolved mysteries. There are stories that would indeed suffer if the answer to the mystery was not properly revealed at the end. However, The Sculptress, in my opinion, is not one of them. A recurring theme in the narrative is Olive Martin's intelligence, which translates really into cunning. There is constantly, somewhere in the back of the reader's mind, a suspicion that Olive is surreptitiously controlling Roz through her revelations, imagined or otherwise. But we really do not know, do we, who is controlling whom? With Olive Martin, what you see isn't necessarily what you get. Having said this, I find it only fitting that the ending be as oblique as Olive herself. It also offers the added bonus of giving you the creeps.

The only reason I could not give The Sculptress five stars is due to the subplots of Hal Hawksley's fight to retain his restaurant and the blossoming love between Roz and Hal. I can be a sucker for a fine romance laced with intrigue myself, but these bogged down what was an otherwise brisk pace and contributed no relevancy to the main narrative. If anything, they took attention away from what was already a riveting story and their tangential connection to the main plot was a weak effort. It is not too sore a point with me so, I still consider the novel a winner.

(Incidentally, the made-for-TV adaptation of The Sculptress is equally good and worth the nearly four hours of viewing. The English are faithful in their adaptations and no detail in the book was sacrificed. For those who enjoyed the book, I highly recommend the film as well.)

The story is intense, sometimes disturbing and completely gripping. The characters are unique, complex and have both character flaws and assets, which makes them believable. A touch of romance adds some humour and lightheartedness contrast well with the rest of the dark story.

As this book begins, author Rosalind Leigh's world is falling apart. Torn up by a failed marriage, she develops writer's block and is unable to pursue her career. To jolt her out of the doldrums, her publisher decides to assign her the task of writing a book about Olive Martin, an obese woman who has confessed to the brutal slayings of her mother and her sister. Rosalind is reluctant at first, but after meeting Olive, she develops a fondness for her and begins to suspect that she is incapable of committing the crimes she has confessed to. Roz connects with Hal, the policeman who investigated the case, and they form a romantic partnership as well as an investigative one. This is a well-written book which keeps the suspense going, although the pace is a little slow at times.