It’s been a long time between thrills for Minette Walters fans. The British author rocketed to the top of best-seller lists around the world with her psychological squirm-fests like The Ice House, The Sculptress and The Scold’s Bridle. And then for the past 10 years… diddly-squat apart from a 2015 novella called The Cellar.
It turned out Walters, 68, had had enough of writing crime fiction. Thankfully, she hasn’t had enough of writing altogether. Thankfully, too, she had a publisher willing to take on the risk of a cash-cow author jumping the genre fence from thrillers to historical fiction. Yes, it’s a monster leap, but master storyteller Walters has made it with room to spare.
The Last Hours is a fat and fabulous 555-page saga set in 1348 Britain, when the Black Death is on the move. Don’t be put off by the macabre premise. The characters are engaging and the story has a lot of charm, centring around a moated manor in Dorset and a community bewildered by the mysterious apocalypse sweeping the land.
It’s been a long time between thrills for Minette Walters fans. The British author rocketed to the top of best-seller lists around the world with her psychological squirm-fests like The Ice House, The Sculptress and The Scold’s Bridle. And then for the past 10 years… diddly-squat apart from a 2015 novella called The Cellar.
It turned out Walters, 68, had had enough of writing crime fiction. Thankfully, she hasn’t had enough of writing altogether. Thankfully, too, she had a publisher willing to take on the risk of a cash-cow author jumping the genre fence from thrillers to historical fiction. Yes, it’s a monster leap, but master storyteller Walters has made it with room to spare.
The Last Hours is a fat and fabulous 555-page saga set in 1348 Britain, when the Black Death is on the move. Don’t be put off by the macabre premise. The characters are engaging and the story has a lot of charm, centring around a moated manor in Dorset and a community bewildered by the mysterious apocalypse sweeping the land.
Walters became captivated by the idea of writing about the Plague after learning it entered England just 15km from where she lives on the south coast. It dawned on her that the victims of the pandemic were buried all around her and that “each time I leave my house… somewhere beneath my feet is a plague pit.”
It pained her that not one of those buried has a name and the well-drawn characters in The Last Hours bring the people and the extraordinary times to life as they face the toughest of choices – stay and starve or leave and risk coming in contact with the disease that is killing almost everyone in its path.
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