The Sculptress

The Sculptress by Minette Walters won the Edgar Award in 1994. I couldn't put it down. This is a bit creepy with lots of gore and unlikeable characters. I realized soon after I started the book that I had seen the PBS Mystery production of this book, but I don't have clear memories of it.

from the back of the book:

A woman imprisoned for hideous slaughter. A writer trapped in a tragic past. One hides the truth the other needs.

In prison, they call her the Sculptress for the strange figurines she carves - symbols of the day she hacked her mother and sister to pieces and reassembled them in a blood-drenched jigsaw. Sullen, menacing, grotesquely fat, Olive Martin is burned-out journalist Rosalind Leigh's only hope of getting a new book published.

But as she interviews Olive in her cell, Roz finds flaws in the Sculptress's confession. Is she really guilty as she insists? Drawn into Olive's world of obsessive lies and love, nothing can stop Roz's pursuit of the chilling, convoluted truth. Not the tidy suburbanites who would rather forget the murders, not an attack on her life-- not even the thought of what might happen if the Sculptress went free...

There is a romantic sub-plot involving a former police officer related to the case who is trying to make a go of a restaurant business, and I also liked that part of the book. I thought they were woven together well without the romance overshadowing the mystery.