Book Review: Chickenfeed

Reviewed By: Catherine Thompson - RAM

Chickenfeed     Amazon US PB Amazon UK PB Amazon Canada PB
Minette Walters
Class/Genre:   Mystery
Pan, $5.99 paperback, 119 pages

Elsie Cameron met Norman Thorne one wintery day in London in 1920. Four years later, she was dead, hacked to pieces and buried in a chicken run at Wesley Poultry Farm in the Blackness Road, Crowborough, East Sussex. Norman, the owner of the chicken farm, was charged with Elsie’s murder. He proclaimed his innocence until the day he was hanged for the crime.

Minette Walters, Britain’s reigning Queen of Crime, takes these bare facts and constructs of them a tale of a twisted personality and a desperate young man. For these are indeed facts; Norman Thorne was hanged on 22 April 1925 for murdering his fiancée Elsie Cameron. Walters states on the very first page what the outcome of this story will be. That statement in no way diminishes her skill or accomplishment here. In a very short space, Walters creates two very real characters and imbues them with motivations not far beyond those of most people. At the same time, she recreates the era and an atmosphere of innocent menace.

Chickenfeed is the first of the Quick Reads series. Quick Reads is World Book Day’s program that encourages new readers with short books accessible to the least able readers. However, the stories written for the series will be of sufficient quality and depth to provide a pleasurable reading experience.

And so Chickenfeed is. The book is certainly no less compelling than any of Walters’s work; in some ways, in fact, it is almost more so. I applaud Walters and her fellow writers contributing to this project, and I hope that the others involved will maintain the standard set by this first book.

Catherine Thompson - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Catherine Thompson - RAM