The Scold's Bridle: Minette Walters

Mean, bitter Mathilda Gillespie has been dead for days: wrists slashed, pills spilled, body in the bath. It all shouts 'suicide!' but would even mad Mathilda have been crazy enough to force over her own head a scold's bridle - an instrument of punishment, an iron framework that enclosed the head, having a sharp metal bit or gag which entered the mouth and restrained the tongue? That was bad enough but for it to be grotesquely laced with nettles and daisies as well? A brilliant psycho thriller. Cover shows Miranda Richardson in the BBC-TV series of the same name.