The Devil's Feather » (~)

One of Britain's most popular crime novelists, Minette Walters has attracted as many fans in the U.S. as she has in the U.K. Ever since her first novel, The Ice House, received the esteemed British John Creasey Award for best first crime novel in 1992, Walters has continued to win awards and accolades for her dark thrillers.

In 2002, five women are discovered barbarously murdered in Sierra Leone. Reuters Africa correspondent Connie Burns suspects a British mercenary: a man who seems to turn up in every war-torn corner of Africa, whose reputation for violence and brutality is well-founded and widely known. Connie's suspicions that he's using the chaos of war to act out sadistic, misogynistic fantasies fall on deaf ears-but she's determined to expose him and his secret.

The New York Times - Marilyn Stasio

Although Walters has always depicted malicious gossip and abuse of the elderly as serious social evils, by linking this behavior to the methodical savagery committed in wartime, she takes the suspense novel into new territory.