THE CHAMELEON’S SHADOW
Minette Walters
Knopf
Psychological Thriller
ISBN: 9780307264633

THE CHAMELEON’S SHADOW opens with glaring headlines announcing the brutal beating deaths of “Martin Britton, a 71-yr-old retired civil servant [and] Harry Peel, a 57-yr-old taxi driver.” If the murders are connected, the only common links so far are their homosexual activities and the fact that they lived alone. Another possible but tenuous tie is their associations with prostitutes of both sexes.

As the narrative unfolds, readers meet Lt. Charles Acland, the former driver of a three-man Scimitar “reconnaissance vehicle that is part of a convoy [traveling along] part of the highway that linked Bosra to Baghdad.” They could not know that “four Iraqis…crouched in the upper story of an abandoned roadside building…[had them in their sights with] long-range binoculars.” By the time Lt. Acland realizes that something in their path doesn’t look right, “it was too late. The roadside bombs, a collection of anti-tank mines rigged to produce [an enormous] blast detonated simultaneously as the vehicle passed between them.” Two of the soldiers die, but Acland survives the explosion.

“Lt. Charles Acland sustained serious head and facial injuries during the attack…the patient’s injuries suggest brain damage likely.” One side of his face, including his eye, has been burned away. The doctors in the field hospital do what they can for his wounds. Then he is repatriated back to England where his physical and psychological damage can be treated. No one knows what his future will be, and he will have a long and painful stay in the South General Hospital, Birmingham, UK.

When he awakens from his coma, he is completely disoriented, terrified, subsumed in pain, angry, confused, suffering from acute post-traumatic stress disorder --- and has gone through a personality change so dramatic that he himself doesn’t recognize who he is or was. In the hospital he gets fine psychiatric care from a very sympathetic Dr. Willis, who goes so far as to contact Jen, the former fiancée, to see if she can help by telling him anything about Acland. She is only too happy to share her opinions of her former lover: “Charlie is a chameleon. He projects different images to different people. With his regiment, he is a man’s man; with me he’s a woman’s man; with his parents he clams up and pretends he’s not there.”

After this interchange, Dr. Willis finally admits that Acland is not helping in his recovery and concludes that he doesn’t remember exactly what happened in Iraq, except perhaps survivor’s guilt. “Willis talked about alienation and social withdrawal…a blunt appraisal of how isolation could lead to…[obsessing] about single issues --- usually people or topics that made him angry.” Acland responds only to the last issue: “You’re making me nervous, Doc.” And in the wake of the information about the danger his hermit-like behavior put him in, he places a call to his parents. But “he found it easier to show no emotion at all, which was a truer reflection of now he felt, for without the means to demonstrate joy or empathy, the sensations themselves seemed to have withered and died.”

Nevertheless, Dr. Willis agrees to release his patient as long as he stays with a psychiatrist who owns a bed and breakfast and can keep an eye on him. Acland is told that he is going to have to work on his self-control as he meanders through the twists and turns of his dark journey “back to the world.” He doesn’t stay at the B&B and ends up on the street going from pillar to post. His twisted and convoluted perceptions of people and events propel him into an emotional downward spiral, reinforcing his desire to be alone to think.

Acland works his way to London and finds out just how much he has changed. He is sitting at the bar in a pub when a Pakistani touches him with a finger to get his attention. He goes berserk and easily could have killed the man without a second thought. But the half-partner in the bar, a very large and strong weightlifting lesbian named Jackson who is also a doctor, breaks up the fracas. She has empathy for Acland despite his cold and secretive demeanor.

Acland despises all women. He hates his mother, as well as former fiancée Jen, who strolls into his hospital room uninvited. They argue, and Acland keeps telling her to leave for her own safety. But she is a stubborn narcissist who bears a resemblance to actress Uma Thurman and believes her looks will conquer any man. She pushes him too far and is lucky to be able to walk out of the facility alive. He barely tolerates the touches of the nurses in the hospital, and his temper is triggered if anyone puts a finger on him, even in jest. She tries and tries to reach Acland, who lives above the pub for a little while, but he ends up taking to the streets and roams for miles and miles.

At the same time, the “gay killer” is still at large, and the police are ready to pin the murders on almost anyone. When an old soldier, a “man of the streets” for decades, is beaten up, Acland is a likely suspect. Ironically, he relies on Jackson, who ignores his rudeness and dark personality, to help him. But Acland has lost the ability to make connections that are warm and human.

As the narrative moves from inside Acland’s head, his migraines, his post-traumatic stress, his self-imposed starvation and his overwhelming need to be alone, the pacing becomes more intense and remains realistic. In an interview, Minette Walters says, “This is a book about anger…it's difficult to understand at the beginning why [Charles Acland] is so angry and as the book unfolds you begin to understand…but there's a lot of other anger in the book…which isn't to say it's a completely bleak novel...”

She goes on to say: "There are two very strong characters in the story who build a relationship --- there's Charles Acland himself, who's the injured soldier, and there's Jackson, who's a doctor who tries to help him. As ever in my books, I've got two stories, really, running parallel with each other, but they are linked in a very strong way…"

Walters has a reputation for building suspense without it being contrived. The themes for which she is famous are focused on psychological acting out and/or relationships between characters. She also limns characters who are believable, acting and communicating in ways that suit their personalities. She sustains the tension and suspense to the final sentence of THE CHAMELEON’S SHADOW. Readers are left to ponder if Acland is a serial killer, or an unfortunate young man who came back from fighting in Iraq as a “dead man walking.”

    --- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

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