From Publishers Weekly
Ever since she won an Edgar back in 1993, Walters has continually worked outside the standard boundaries of crime drama. Psychological suspense may be the best tagline for her novels, but it still doesn't quite catch her tenor. Her heroes, for example, are anything but moody, disagreeable. Her dialogue wanders and stews and then jabs like a bayonet. Her plots often evolve out of sequence. She simply won't walk the line and she's confoundingly good at taking liberties. Here, Walters transports readers to Acid Row, a dungeon of a housing project in a London suburb populated by single mothers, fatherless children, criminals fresh from prison, gangs and the helpless elderly. It's a community, however, bonded in its destitution, suspicious and unwelcoming of outsiders. When word leaks out that the government has placed a pedophile in No. 23, the beleaguered residents begin to simmer. Then, when a 10-year-old girl goes missing, Acid Row explodes into open revolt. With frightening clarity, Walters breaks down the daylong riot into recurring vignettes. There's the anguish of Sophie Morrison, a young doctor taken hostage by the pedophile and his vicious father; swaggering ex-con Jimmy James, who rises to the occasion with bursts of reluctant heroism; the cowering police and their pathetic attempts at restoring order; and the evasive parents of Amy Biddulph, the little girl nobody can find. Walters (The Shape of Snakes; Edgar-winning The Sculptress) pulls it all off with rhythmic brilliance, the narrative flowing smoothly. Again, she demonstrates her eye for the sociological and psychological avalanche provoked by human temptation and people living in cramped quarters. With her eighth novel, Walters continues to navigate literary pathways few have ventured down before her. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
A young doctor enters Acid Row, a dank housing project, and finds herself in the clutches of a dangerous pedophile.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Let's get this over with right away. This isn't one of acclaimed British crime writer Walters' better books. Unlike The Sculptress, for which she won an Edgar in 1994, this is a rambling, messy, ultraviolent novel with a cast of far too many. That said, her fans will read it anyway, as it still bears some of the hallmarks of her many successes, particularly that keen sense of the dark side of humanity--the power of rumors and lies; the prejudice, powerlessness, and fear that patiently wait to catch people off guard, especially in communities where poverty and drugs are the only common denominators. Bassindale Estates, called Acid Row by its residents, is one of those communities: crowded, crime-riddled, and geographically cut off from the mainstream. When its residents discover that a pedophile has been released among them, righteous indignation, boredom, and prejudice coalesce into mob violence: they want him out. When the firebombs start to explode, a young doctor finds herself trapped in the pedophile's home with the man and his vicious father; a young black man, just out of prison may be the only person who can get her out safely. Powerful material but without the subtlety and tightness that Walters usually brings to her work. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Publishers Weekly
[Minette Walters] pulls it all off with rhythmic brilliance, the narrative flowing smoothly.


New York Daily News, July 7, 2002
...a compelling weave of chilling plot lines.


Entertainment Weekly
Edgar-winning suspense novelist Walters has written a zippy summer read with this tightly plotted, character-rich thriller.


I Love A Mystery.com
Walters has a refined sociological and psychological imagination.


The State
It's a gripping story ... one superbly written novel.


Denver Post, July 28, 2002
...a page-turner that challenges readers with out-of-sequence plot developments and expertly developed characters...


Orlando Sentinel, July 28, 2002
Walters juggles the action with ease, populating her story with memorable characters...


Book Description
A writer of unquestioned talent and power, Minette Walters has electrified readers around the globe with her fiercely compelling and utterly riveting thrillers that have earned her comparisons to Ruth Rendell and P. D. James. In Acid Row, she takes us to a place that is all the more frightening because it is so real.

Acid Row. The name beleaguered inhabitants give their crime-riddled, decaying housing project. It's a no-man's land of single mothers and fatherless children, where angry, alienated youths control the streets.

Into this battleground comes Sophie Morrison, a young doctor visiting a patient there-and unaware that she is entering the home of a known pedophile. With reports circulating that a child has disappeared into this bedlam, the vigilantes are out in force. Sophie is trapped at the center of this terrifying siege, wth a man who can and will harm her . . . and the mob is out for blood.


About the Author
Minette Walters is the author of seven previous novels. Her work has been translated into thirty-two languages and has been adapted for television.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
At the start of Acid Row, we learn that one hot summer's day all hell broke loose in crime-ridden Bassindale Estates housing project (nicknamed "Acid Row" by its inhabitants). It began as a peaceful protest, when local mothers organized a march against a registered pedophile who had been resettled there. But when a child is reported missing, the protest march is hijacked by local teens who set up barricades to keep out the police. As Molotov cocktails begin to fly and angry lynch mobs roam the neighborhood, 19-year-old Mel, six months pregnant and desperate to protect her two young children, struggles to hold a thin line of friends and neighbors against the raging mob, and her boyfriend, two days out of jail and the police's only hope for rescuing a hostage, stands against a tide of angry people who've decided they have nothing left to lose. Minette Walters has a gift for creating complex characters whose actions and motivations are totally believable, even as they are caught up in situations of harrowing tension. She weaves together strands of several stories in Acid Row, drawing readers into this darkly compelling world to discover who will live, who will die, and who has the missing child￯﾿ﾽ. Sue Stone

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Acid Row is a crime-infested housing project that exists by its own laws. When news comes that a child has been kidnapped, the frustration and anger that has been seething on the streets of Acid Row is ignited. And no one will be safe.

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Daily News

...a compelling weave of chilling plot lines.

Denver Post

...a page-turner that challenges readers with out-of-sequence plot developments and expertly developed characters...

State

It's a gripping story ... one superbly written novel.

Entertainment Weekly

Edgar-winning suspense novelist Walters has written a zippy summer read with this tightly plotted, character-rich thriller.

I Love A Mystery.com