The Scold's Bridle

⚖The case for it

A wealthy elderly woman found dead in her bath wearing a medieval torture device. Walters' second Gold Dagger winner demonstrates her signature: the thriller as character study, the crime as symptom of domestic pathology. The scold's bridle, used to silence women, is among crime fiction's most resonant symbols.

— the canon

✕The case against

Walters interleaves extracts from Mathilda's diary through the investigation, a device that does atmosphere well and pace badly: the present keeps stopping to read a dead woman's papers. The solution turns on a knot of family resentment so intricate it gets unwound in conversation rather than dramatized. Cleverly built, but the gears stay visible.

— the honest librarian