Chickenfeed by Minette Walters: a review

I wasn’t looking for anything in particular for my first book of 2020. My only plan was because of timing. I was due back at uni in a few days when I was searching the library, so I was simply looking for something short, and I was feeling like reading a crime book. I saw this book with an interesting name and only about 100 pages, so I snapped it up.

            Chickenfeed by Minette Walters is based on a true story. I’m usually turned away by stories like this, but the story sounded interesting, so I went ahead with it. Norman Thorne meets a woman a few years older than him called Elsie. He’s enamoured at first, but her mood swings and strange temperament means that the relationship turns sour. I won’t spoil the end, but it’s all rather odd, but really fascinating.

            The language of the book was so easy to get along with. There’s no pretentiousness at all. A problem I face with many authors, especially within crime, is that they try to sound too clever, and this can make their books hard to follow, but Walters does and excellent job of guiding the reader through her book. I’m not a particularly fast reader, but I read this in two sittings. I was planning on reading it in just over thirty pages at a time each day until I was due to go back to Wales. I read about 60 pages on day one, and finished it the day after that. I was able to speed through this book, and that was such a good feeling.

            I thoroughly recommend this book. If you want to get into crime, but the size of many of the novels feel intimidating, then this is definitely the book for you. It’s also just great for if you don’t have much time to read because you can read a full novel rather quickly, even if you can only read a few pages at a time.