Product Description

A body is found in a chicken run . . .

Based on the true story of the ‘chicken farm murder’ which took place in Blackness, Crowborough, East Sussex in December, 1924.

Norman Thorne was found guilty of the murder of Elsie Cameron, but even at the time of his execution there were doubts about his guilt.

Still swearing his innocence, Norman Thorne was hanged on 22 April 1925.

Bestselling author Minette Walters brings a thrilling story to life in this gripping new novel.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29922 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-03
• Format: Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
When Minette Walters was commissioned (along with several other writers) to produce a book in the Quick Read series, she came up with a novel called Chickenfeed, firmly in her chosen territory: the psychology of crime and criminals. The brief was to keep things fast-moving, with no unwieldy adjectives and (if possible) seduce into reading those who have either lost--or had never acquired--the habit. Ironically, Chickenfeed, despite its brevity, reads very much like Walters’ customary fare: a violent crime is committed (offstage, as it were), but the concentration is on perpetrator and victim rather than a dogged police inspector putting the pieces together.

The subject is a true story: in 1920s East Sussex, the corpse of Elsie Cameron is discovered in a chicken run. The man found guilty of the crime, her fiancé Norman Thorne, was sentenced to death and hanged. At the time of his death, doubts were cast on the verdict, and it is very much Walters’ concern to address those doubts here. We're given a fascinating and detailed study of two blighted lives: Norman, living under cramped conditions, is struggling against heavy odds to make a living as a chicken farmer. The unprepossessing Elsie, prickly and self obsessed, finds it difficult to get on with her family or her workmates, and is fired from a succession of jobs. Marriage to Norman is the one thing--she comes to believe--that will change her wretched life, but although she does her damnedest to get the reluctant Norman to marry her, she withholds sex, allowing Norman to undress her and touch her naked body, but forbidding any other sexual contact. Things grow worse, as Elsie's family (keen to rid themselves of her) join their daughter in pressing marriage on the increasingly reluctant Norman. Then he meets someone else... and Elsie disappears.

This story, in its own terms, is fascinating enough, but in Walters’ expert hands, the swiftest of reads is guaranteed. Some may be unhappy with her deliberately vague treatment of the grim finale of the tale, and long-term Walters aficionados will be keen for her to get back to her normal-length novels--but certainly this is a book that it is difficult to put down.
--Barry Forshaw

Lloyd Evans, The Spectator
'Walters has produced a gripping account of a true-life romance between a needy office girl and a chapel-going farm boy.'

Lloyd Evans, The Spectator
'With admirable assurance she even discloses the ending on the opening page... Highly enjoyable.'

Customer Reviews

Absorbing.
Another in this excellent Quick Reads series. In this one Minette Walters re-examines the death of Elsie Cameron in 1924. Elsie was reputedly murdered by her boyfriend, an impoverished chicken-farmer called Norman Thorne, who was subsequently hanged for the crime. Walters argues that this story may not be as clear-cut as it first appears. Elsie was an unstable young woman (these days she would be diagnosed as suffering from BPD, Borderline Personality Disorder), prone to excessive mood swings, depression, and constant threats to kill herself. When she realised that she was losing Norman's affections, she tried to fool him that she was pregnant, even though they had never had full sex together. Walters argues that Elsie in fact tried to frighten Norman by pretending to commit suicide, only for it all go terribly wrong. At the time there were doubts that Norman was guilty, but the fact that he had panicked and cut up her body, and hid it around his farm, lost him the sympathy of the jury. This is a superb little murder mystery, which was so engrossing I read it in one sitting. I hope Ms Walters turns her attention to other vintage crime mysteries.

Was this the way that it really happened?
Minette Walters does a great job of weaving what could have been the real lives of Norman Thorne and Elsie Cameron around a true story from 1920's Sussex.

Norman was eventually convicted of the murder of his fiancé, Elsie, and hung, despite the doubts around the conviction at the time. The way that the author describes the events leading up to Elsie's death could easily have happened this way, and Chickenfeed casts even more doubts on Norman's conviction.

The pressures exerted on a poor young man, struggling to build a decent living from a small chicken farm, which has been paid for by his father, in the years following the First World War, are enormous. Elsie is depressed, and is obsessed with becoming a married woman, especially after her brother and sister both get married in the same year. She will do anything to become Norman's wife, and that obsession, one way or another, undoubtedly contributes to her tragic death.

The author leaves the conclusions to the reader, which I think is a good move.

This is a book that not only makes you think about what happened to these two young unfortunates, but of the wider picture surrounding the death sentence down the years. It takes less than two hours to read, and is well worth the effort.

Chicken Feed
Loved this short book. Read it in one sitting. Loved the build up of the characters.
I wish the book was longer. Excellent.
It's the first book i've read from Waters already ordered a few more!!!