Minette Walters: The Chameleon's Shadow

Minette Walters: The Chameleon's Shadow (UK 2012)

From the Publisher:
When Lieutenant Charles Acland is flown home from Iraq with serious head injuries, he faces not only permanent disfigurement but also an apparent change to his previously outgoing personality.

Crippled by migraines, and suspicious of his psychiatrist, he begins to display sporadic bouts of aggression, particularly against women, especially his ex-fiancee who seems unable to accept that the relationship is over.

After his injuries prevent his return to the army, he cuts all ties with his former life and moves to London. Alone and unmonitored, he sinks into a private world of guilt and paranoid distrust... until a customer annoys him in a Bermondsey pub and he attracts the attention of local police investigating three murders which appear to have been motivated by extreme rage...

Under suspicion, Acland is forced to confront the real issues behind his isolation. How much control does he have over the dark side of his personality? Do his migraines contribute to his rages? Has he always been the duplicitous chameleon that his ex-fiancee claims?

And why -- if he hates women -- does he look to a woman for help?

Minette Walters: The Chameleon's Shadow. Pan, ISBN: 9781447208082 (July, 2012), 544 p., £7.99.

Minette Walters: The Chameleon's Shadow (UK 2011)

And why -- if he hates women -- does he look to a woman for help?

Minette Walters: The Chameleon's Shadow. Pan eBook, ISBN: 9780230225954 (May, 2011), 769 KB (ca. 386 p.), £5.99.

Minette Walters: The Chameleon's Shadow (USA 2009)

From the Publisher:
From the author of The Devil's Feather comes a haunting psychological thriller about a scarred Iraq war veteran whose physical trauma may reflect the inner turmoil of a killer.

Somewhere in the endless, deadly desert between Basra and Baghdad, Lieutenant Charles Acland's convoy was attacked. Recovering in the hospital, Charles is crippled by migraines and suspicious of his doctors. He grows uncharacteristically aggressive, particularly against women. Rejecting cosmetic surgery, he moves to London. There 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, who are investigating three recent murders. Now under suspicion, Charles is forced to confront his issues before it's too late, but the shadowy forces working against him -- or in him -- could be more than he can overcome.

Minette Walters: The Chameleon's Shadow. Vintage Books, ISBN: 0307277089 (March, 2009), 369 p., $14.95.

Minette Walters: The Chameleon's Shadow (UK 2008)

From the Publisher:
The stunning new bestseller from Minette Walters
When Lieutenant Charles Acland is flown home from Iraq with serious head injuries, he faces not only permanent disfigurement but also an apparent change to his previously outgoing personality.

Out of control and only prevented from killing the man by the intervention of a 250-pound female weightlifter called Jackson, he attracts the attention of police who are investigating three 'gay' murders in the Bermondsey area which appear to have been motivated by extreme rage...

And why - if he hates women - does he look to a woman for help?

Minette Walters: The Chameleon's Shadow. Pan Books; ISBN: 0330449559 (May, 2008), 526 p., £6.99.

Minette Walters: The Chameleon's Shadow (USA 2008)

From the Publisher:
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-fianc?e. 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-fianc?e 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.

Minette Walters: The Chameleon's Shadow. Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN: 0307264637 (January, 2008), 369 p., $24.95.

Minette Walters: The Chameleon's Shadow (UK 2007)

Out of control and only prevented from killing the man by the intervention of a 250-pound female weightlifter called Jackson, he attracts the attention of police who are investigating three ?gay? murders in the Bermondsey area which appear to have been motivated by extreme rage...

And why - if he hates women - does he look to a woman for help?

Minette Walters: The Chameleon's Shadow. Macmillan, ISBN: 0230015662 (September, 2007), 384 p., £17.99.