'MY MOTHER ONCE asked me why I didn't write a book about a 'nice little murder', like someone putting a cushion over an old woman's head,' says crime writer Minette Walters with a laugh. 'That would be too easy for me.' Walters doesn't do 'nice little murders'. Nor does she do easy ones. Along with P.D. James and Ruth Rendall, she's considered one of the queens of crime fiction. But her gritty, contemporary mysteries couldn't be further removed from the cosy, tea-in-the-vicarage murders often associated with female crime writers. Walters has her finger on the pulse of modern Britain, tackling such topical issues as paedophilia, domestic violence, racial prejudice, the Iraq war and homelessness. Yet her 12 novels - almost one a year since 1992 - retain the flavour of good old-fashioned whodunits. Walters' new book, The Devil's Feather, is her first in an international setting. Connie Burns is a Reuter's correspondent in Sierra Leone, where five women are raped and murdered against the backdrop of genocide. Connie suspects a Scottish mercenary who uses the mayhem of war as camouflage for his own sadistic fantasies. She encounters him again in war-torn Baghdad, and a cat-and-mouse game ensues. The term 'devil's feather' is a Turkish expression for a woman who unwittingly stirs up a man's interest. Walters was inspired to write the novel while visiting Sierra Leone with French charity Medecin San Frontieres. 'I was appalled by the chaos, even two years after the war ended. I thought, 'What a wonderful cover for a man who took pleasure in killing'.' Revelations about the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners of war in the Abu Ghraib prison camp shocked her. 'The western coalition was so morally certain that it was doing the right thing,' she says. 'Of course, when the events of Abu Ghraib rocked the world, we realised there was sadism and cruelty on both sides.' Unusually for crime writers, Walters' books are all one-offs with no series character - which doesn't seem to have deterred readers. Her first three - The Ice House, The Sculptress and The Scold's Bridle - all won major awards and put her on best-seller lists. Five of her novels have been adapted for television (two are showing on BBC Prime), starring the likes of Clive Owen, Daniel Craig and Miranda Richardson. Walters says she's the envy of her crime writing peers. 'Not having a series character gives me so much more freedom,' she says. 'I can tackle whatever I want, and not be shackled to a particular place, time or person. I'd find it tedious to remain in a comfortable formula and to use the same detective every time. Besides, I didn't want to end up like Agatha Christie, who apparently hated [her fictional creation] Hercule Poirot.' Walters' more recent books were inspired by actual events such as a race-hate killing, newspaper campaigns against paedophiles, September 11 and the debate in Britain about banning foxhunting. 'I like the idea that, by setting my stories against a contemporary event, I root the story firmly for my reader and they know what I'm talking about.' For a writer who loves the genteel novels of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Walters' own books aren't for the squeamish - although she denies that they're particularly violent. 'I do leave quite a lot unsaid, because I'm aware that every reader brings their own imagination to the book, which is much more frightening. During Christie's and Sayers' times, the murder mystery was almost like a parlour game. But Wilkie Collins, who wrote The Moonstone [arguably, the first crime novel], was very gritty and dark. With the advent of forensic sciences, crime-writing is coming full circle.' What violence there is serves a purpose, says Walters. 'One of the things I do deliberately is to reveal the murder in the first few pages, which makes my books appear deceptively brutal. This is to remind people about the horror of murder. It's the ultimate theft - you can never give a life back.' Her narratives are interspersed with e-mails, letters and photos, which make them even more convincing. 'I do this as a way of making them more realistic, almost like a documentary.' Connie, like most of Walters' heroines, is tough to the point of ruthlessness. 'I grew up reading crime thrillers like Alistair McLean and Hammond Innes, and was always annoyed that it was men who were solving everything and rescuing damsels in distress. I was quite determined that my women weren't going to be eclipsed, either as heroines or murderesses.' Walters is known for the twists and turns of her stories, which often end ambiguously. Yet, she says she doesn't plot her books. 'I just think of an idea, create really good characters, and then let them write the story'. She says she still doesn't know if Olive Martin, the protagonist of The Sculptress was a murderess or not. Many of her novels deal with crime and punishment, and Walters has been a prison visitor for several years. Her grandfather, Joshua Jebb, was Surveyor General of British prisons during the mid-19th century, and helped introduce a number of reforms - a subject that Walters feels strongly about. 'It seems to me bizarre that things should remain unchanged since the time my grandfather visited. For instance, 50 to 75 per cent of the prison population is illiterate. We need to teach them how to read.' And she says she believes there's unnecessary hysteria about crime in Britain, especially about paedophilia. 'I think the tabloids just like to stoke up fear because it makes for a good story. The truth is that most victims are murdered or molested in their own homes by people who know them.' Is literary snobbery stopping crime writers from getting their due? Two of Walters' peers, James and Ian Rankin, recently called for crime fiction to be considered serious writing worthy of literary awards. Speaking at the Cheltenham literary festival, they argued that modern crime writers deal with important contemporary social issues, but are still less well regarded. Walters isn't convinced. 'I'd love a crime novel to get a prize, but I can quite see why they haven't. We write in a different way, usually on contemporary issues and in a page-turner style. A literary novel is on a much bigger canvas and may take years to write. As for getting enough respect, I think everybody likes to read a good crime novel, including the serious literary authors. Perhaps they read us surreptitiously - within brown paper covers.' Walters has served on juries for the Orange and Whitbread prizes (for women worldwide and by British residents, respectively), which she says was 'great fun and very hard work'. She says she has some reservations about a special prize for women, 'but anything that encourages great writing has to be a good thing'. Walters' next project is a crime novel for Quick Reads, a programme established by Unesco to publish books for adults with reading difficulties. It's a fictional version of a murder that happened 80 years ago. And she plans to keep testing the boundaries of her genre. 'What I liked about the Sherlock Holmes novels was that they told you everything you wanted to know about Victorian London. If somebody buys my books at a jumble sale in 50 years time, I like the idea that they might get a flavour of what our times were like.' The Minnette Walters Season, BBC Prime, Tues, 9.30pm (The Echo final episode this week; The Dark Room begins Dec 6)
