Rating: 
Summary: Check your assumptions at the door...
Review: There are so many twists and turns in this novel that just as you think you are beginning to understand a particular character and unravel the tangle of who murdered Mathilda Gillespie, you have to change your mind. Loved it! It was very fast-paced, the characters were unique and complex rather than easily categorized. One felt as ambivalent about the characters as they did about each other. The overall atmosphere was one of madness, despair, the seamy, sordid underside of life that everyone prefers to pretend doesn't exist. Very exciting, a real page-turner.
Rating:
Summary: An unusual, can't-put-it-down mystery full of human dramas
Review: This book is excellent on many different fronts, and contains several good stories, artfully interwoven. Characterizations are great, dialogue is equally so,
suspense is whetted, satisfied, and renewed throughout the story, and an unusual story is made
totally believable through the craft of this writer.
The narrative is artfully studded with selections from the victim's extremely colorful diary, and new
revelations feed varied speculations and different
views of the crime and characters right to the very end.END
Rating:
Summary: The Scold's Bridle
Review: This is the best book I've read in a long time
Rating: 
Summary: Very good
Review: This story started slow but the characters evolved into real good read
Rating:
Summary: Good Character Development Makes Good Reading
Review: This was the most enjoyable mystery I have read this year. What makes it exceptional is the slow introduction of characters and how the reader gets to know them through other people and also through the action. In movies, one knows who the bad guys are-- they are always smoking. The bad guys are quickly and easily labeled so that we can get on with the movie. However, in "The Scold's Bridle", as in real life, the characters do not stick to their good or bad labels. This humanizes them and humanizes the protagonist because in real life we are often blinded by our first impressions and prejudices. The character development and the complex and page-turning mystery makes this book a good read. I also read Ms. Walters' other books and enjoyed this one second to "The Ice House".
Rating:
Summary: One of the best!
Review: Unfortunately, I didn't see the BBC TV series but it must have been great. Mathilda Gillespie is a bitter, nasty woman who is found dead in her bath, naked with her wrists slashed and wearing a horrible middle ages contraption called a scold's bridle on her head. The bridle was a metal head collar which held down the tongue, effectively, if cruelly, silencing the wearer.Mathilda was generally disliked so there are quite a few candidates on the police list of suspects. It's a great murder mystery which I enjoyed tremendously.
Rating:
Summary: A good read for mystery lovers
Review: Walters has woven a narrative that starts out rather slow and takes untilt he middle of the book to really get the reader interested. Nontheless, her ability to develop god characters, contrary to other opinions I have seen here, are excellent. The tangled web that surrounds the life of a wretched and sometimes-wicked old lady is startling and the reader is anxious to know who the killer is - if even there is one.
It is good to read a non-American novel, with good British prose amidst the culture of small-town nosiness. With a mixture of homour and horror, Walters writes a good tale that gives credence to her fame as a world-class mystery writer.
Rating:
Summary: A good read for mystery lovers
Review: Walters has woven a narrative that starts out rather slow and takes untilt he middle of the book to really get the reader interested. Nontheless, her ability to develop god characters, contrary to other opinions I have seen here, are excellent. The tangled web that surrounds the life of a wretched and sometimes-wicked old lady is startling and the reader is anxious to know who the killer is - if even there is one.
It is good to read a non-American novel, with good British prose amidst the culture of small-town nosiness. With a mixture of homour and horror, Walters writes a good tale that gives credence to her fame as a world-class mystery writer.
Rating:
Summary: A dazzling twist of plot and character, calculated to amuse
Review: Walters is at her innovative best, with bluffs, double twists, and all sorts of plot curves, as always. Above all, her characters are fabulous company, even the ones you love to hate. If you prefer Doris Day to Bette Davis, this book is not for you. We loved it
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