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Title details for The Chameleon's Shadow by Minette Walters - Available

The Chameleon's Shadow

A Novel

by Minette Walters
Simon Vance
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
When British lieutenant Charles Acland returns home from Iraq, his serious head injuries are the outward manifestation of a profound inner change: he may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or it may be, as his psychiatrist suggests, "the prolonged destruction of a personality."


Though previously well adjusted and known as an extrovert, Acland now withdraws into himself. As he begins his recovery in a dismal provincial hospital, crippled by migraines and suspicious of his doctors, he grows uncharacteristically aggressive—particularly against women, and most particularly against his ex-fiancée. Finally, rejecting medical advice to undergo cosmetic surgery—opting, instead, to accept his disfigurement—and cutting all ties to his former life, he moves to London. There, alone and unmonitored, he sinks into a quagmire of guilt and paranoia—until an outburst of irrational, vicious anger brings him to the attention of the local police: they are investigating three recent murders, all of them apparently motivated by the kind of extreme rage that Acland has exhibited.


Now under suspicion, Acland is forced to confront the issues behind his desperate existence before it's too late: Has he always been the duplicitous chameleon that his ex-fiancée accuses him of being? Can he control this newly apparent sinister side of his personality? And why, if he truly hates women, does he in the end seek help from a woman—someone as straightforward and self-disciplined as he is unsure and seemingly out of control—to repair the damage to his mind?


In its timeliness, its psychological complexity, and its unstoppable suspense, The Chameleon's Shadow is a thriller of the first order.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    January 22, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781400125982
      • File size: 310250 KB
      • Duration: 10:46:21

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      In Minette Walters's latest suspense novel, Simon Vance partners with the author to create an amazing oral portrait of a British veteran of the Iraq War, who may or may not be a killer. Lieutenant Charles Acland returns from the war with a damaged face and a deep distrust of everyone. Just as he is making some psychological progress, he is implicated in a beating. Vance manages to create distinct, telling personalities for a huge cast that includes street kids, weary police, and lesbian bar owners. His gradually changing tone for Acland helps us understand the man's moods. And his pacing carries us through the slightly overlong doctor talk into the heart of the suspense. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 26, 2007
      One look at Lt. Charles Acland’s disfigured face and anyone can see that the Iraqi bomb that blew up two of his men has left him profoundly changed—but have his traumatic brain injuries altered the young British army officer’s personality enough to make him a murderer? That’s the narrative fuse Edgar-winner Walters (The Devil’s Feather)
      lights to ignite this sizzling psychological thriller. She skillfully interweaves strands of Acland’s story, including notes from the military psychiatrist treating him, with the hunt for a serial killer who’s claimed at least three victims in South London. Then another man is beaten within an inch of his life not long after Acland’s move into the neighborhood. When the lieutenant gets into a near-fatal bar fight with a Pakistani stockbroker, Acland’s unlikely savior is a 250-pound lesbian weight lifter and doctor named Jackson. Surprisingly, Jackson is also one of the few convincing characters in this plot-propelled tale, a flaw readers may be willing to ignore—until they slam into a contrived denouement well below Walters’s usual standard.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 31, 2008
      Unlike the protagonist of Walters's novel, Vance may not be suffering from a split personality. Still Vance's cabinet of voices—each with its own timbre, character, accent and persona—accurately reflects the multifaceted aspect of Walters's book. Her hero, a wounded British veteran of the war in Iraq who returns home with no recollection of his service, is carefully documented through doctors' accounts and conversations with family members and others. Vance is a gifted enough mimic that one occasionally forgets that all these voices are emerging from the same throat. Some of the nuance—of British class and education, or lack thereof, as coded in the relative width or narrowness of vowels and consonants—may be lost on some American listeners, but it demonstrates Vance's expertise. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 26, 2007).

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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