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Adam and Eve and Pinch Me
With consummate skill, Ruth Rendell pulls the colorful strands of this harrowing story ever tighter, increasing the tension page by page.
Jock Lewis was supposed to have died in that terrible train crash at Paddington. Minty, his girlfriend, received a letter from Great Western telling her so. But, curiously, the police haven't been in touch. And Jock has borrowed all her savings . . .
Zillah also got a letter from the railway company, informing her that her husband, Jerry Leach, was dead. Something about the letter struck her as suspicious, but she chooses not to mention her doubts to the up-and-coming Conservative Member of Parliament who has just proposed a marriage of convenience . . .
Fiona, a successful banker, met Jeff Leigh before the Paddington crash in August. Although he never seemed to have a job, and borrowed money from her, she is utterly devoted to him—and can't understand why he suddenly has disappeared . . .
As this novel gets under way, it is not immediately apparent how the lives of these women might be connected, or how they may figure into a series of vicious stabbing deaths that have shocked and terrified the citizens of London. With consummate skill, Ruth Rendell pulls the colorful strands of this harrowing story ever tighter, increasing the tension page by page.
Jock Lewis was supposed to have died in that terrible train crash at Paddington. Minty, his girlfriend, received a letter from Great Western telling her so. But, curiously, the police haven't been in touch. And Jock has borrowed all her savings . . .
Zillah also got a letter from the railway company, informing her that her husband, Jerry Leach, was dead. Something about the letter struck her as suspicious, but she chooses not to mention her doubts to the up-and-coming Conservative Member of Parliament who has just proposed a marriage of convenience . . .
Fiona, a successful banker, met Jeff Leigh before the Paddington crash in August. Although he never seemed to have a job, and borrowed money from her, she is utterly devoted to him—and can't understand why he suddenly has disappeared . . .
As this novel gets under way, it is not immediately apparent how the lives of these women might be connected, or how they may figure into a series of vicious stabbing deaths that have shocked and terrified the citizens of London. With consummate skill, Ruth Rendell pulls the colorful strands of this harrowing story ever tighter, increasing the tension page by page.
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
114 people are currently reading
851 people want to read
About the author
Ruth Rendell
456 books1,622 followersA.K.A. Barbara Vine
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, who also wrote under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, was an acclaimed English crime writer, known for her many psychological thrillers and murder mysteries and above all for Inspector Wexford.
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, who also wrote under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, was an acclaimed English crime writer, known for her many psychological thrillers and murder mysteries and above all for Inspector Wexford.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 231 reviews
April 19, 2024
It would be inaccurate for the reader to classify this book as a mystery, because one can observe the actions of the characters throughout. The proper genre would most aptly be one of suspense. The mystery to me is how Ruth Rendell, inarguably The Queen of the Crime Novel, is able to produce such a broad array of psychopathology in her writing. Bewildering it often is, but coupled with her brilliant style of story telling, her books are compelling.
The stories of these characters and their actions, all for the sake of self preservation vary widely. The panoply of traits that are observed are obsessive compulsive disorder, anorexia, gluttony, superstition, larceny, bigamy, confidence games, vanity, narcissism, arrogance and pomposity- to name a few. I actually failed to mention murder! Of course this is all in one book! Rendell, as ever, has woven together these strands of seemingly unrelated attributes, activities and people to produce a tension filled novel which sustained my interest throughout. The title is enigmatic until you delve into the narrative.
Perhaps when reading this, it may be deemed by some as “not much of a review”. Yes, there are many descriptive nouns here and I have not introduced the actual characters; but this book delighted me and confirmed my admiration of Rendell. I hope that my enthusiasm will lead others to explore it. (I am elevating my rating to 4.5 !)
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4/21/2016
I was saddened to have learned of Rendell's recent death, but there remain many of her books left for me to read!!
The stories of these characters and their actions, all for the sake of self preservation vary widely. The panoply of traits that are observed are obsessive compulsive disorder, anorexia, gluttony, superstition, larceny, bigamy, confidence games, vanity, narcissism, arrogance and pomposity- to name a few. I actually failed to mention murder! Of course this is all in one book! Rendell, as ever, has woven together these strands of seemingly unrelated attributes, activities and people to produce a tension filled novel which sustained my interest throughout. The title is enigmatic until you delve into the narrative.
Perhaps when reading this, it may be deemed by some as “not much of a review”. Yes, there are many descriptive nouns here and I have not introduced the actual characters; but this book delighted me and confirmed my admiration of Rendell. I hope that my enthusiasm will lead others to explore it. (I am elevating my rating to 4.5 !)
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4/21/2016
I was saddened to have learned of Rendell's recent death, but there remain many of her books left for me to read!!
October 27, 2018
Among the best psychological thrillers that I have read. Imaginative and compulsively readable. Best of Ruth Rendall that I have read so far. I don't ever remember rooting for the protagonist so much as I did with this book. At least, not in recent memory. Recommended.
December 19, 2015
Another terrific psychological suspense drama from the author. Several interconnected stories tied together by the murder of a womanizing opportunistic cad. You know who and how and why, but it's still such a compelling read. There is a timeless quality to Rendell's characters, sure the reader can date the time the story takes place by the outside factors, in this case movies, since there's quite a few cinefiles in the bunch, but aside from that the small sadness or sad smallness of their lives is ageless indeed. Everyone does the best they can in their relatively confined and fairly bleak environments, it's the perpetual gray territory of good intentions and muddled executions. So very much like real life itself. This time Rendell also throws in some psychological disorders, food related ones and OCD for starters, handled in the proper British manner of polite ignoring for all the good that does. This might be the longest book I've read by the author thus far and it's great to see that the quality holds up no matter the word count. Very enjoyable reading, very well done. Highly recommended.
February 26, 2019
I like Ruth Rendell. She's a cut above many in her field and can write well and with a distinctive, wry and observant style. This book was a fairly enjoyable read up until the last forty pages or so. At some point, I just knew that while the journey was entertaining at points, I wasn't going to be too pleased with where it took me. Indeed, after familiarising myself with these characters, while finding many of them somewhat difficult to believe in, the book just sort of trails off. It's a bit disappointing.
The book did manage something unusual: we know who the guilty party is, and that the victims don't absolutely deserve what they've gotten, but I think most readers will feel more than a little sorry for her and kind of hope she doesn't get caught. In the end, of course, she does, but I'm not really satisfied with the method in which this was one. I'm not even sure the evidence against her would have been sufficient to stand up. She was, after all, startled by a stranger in her home at the last moment; lots of women carry knives and might use them if panicked; is this really enough to definitively link her to "The Cinema Killer"? I guess it doesn't matter. Ruth was more interested in the travel, the exploration of character and so on. To be honest, so was i, but I still thought the wrap-up was fairly bland and unconvincing.
What's more, as hinted at previously, believing in most of these people was a tall order, for me. Jims, the gay Conservative MP living a lie, getting married to some girl he apparently didn't know all that well just for the trophy factor and the heteronormative/traditional family values points. Matthew, the guy with a pathological aversion to food who somehow learns to conquer his difficulties by being on a television show. michelle, matthew's huge wife, who is so cross with her neighbour for not-all-that-much that she'll never be able to view her the same way again. jeff and all his girlfriends, who wanted to be with him why, exactly? There was charm in some of these people and their depictions, but many of their reactions and motivations were nearly incomprehensible to me. Suppose that's my own fault and not something I should lay at Ruth's door, but I felt like I was tolerant of what I viewed as potential shortcomings only to have my annoyances justified in the end. The book left me with a sort of empty feeling and that's just not something I like, to be blunt.
Besides the incredible characters, the book hinges on the premise that a mousey little woman was able to stab two people to death in public places without really being noticed. We're supposed to believe this simply because she's crazy. She's also fastidious to a near pathological degree, though. I don't know if Ruth Rendell has thought much about murder by stabbings, and while I've never born witness to one, myself, I've known people who were the victims of knife attacks and they are anything but clean and quiet. Stabbing someone to death means an arduous and protracted struggle; it means noise; it means lots of blood. Even if you took someone by surprise, your chances of delivering a fatal blow aren't very high unless you are incredibly determined, and this would apply to someone who was experienced in wielding a knife for offensive purposes, something which Araminta Knox certainly isn't. The idea that someone so obsessed with cleanliness would choose this method of execution struck me as a bit preposterous, even if she did think she was somehow slaying ghosts. I usually have no trouble suspending disbelief if necessary when reading a good book, but this one started to have enough stacked up against it that by the end I was just done with giving Ruth a pass.
The book did manage something unusual: we know who the guilty party is, and that the victims don't absolutely deserve what they've gotten, but I think most readers will feel more than a little sorry for her and kind of hope she doesn't get caught. In the end, of course, she does, but I'm not really satisfied with the method in which this was one. I'm not even sure the evidence against her would have been sufficient to stand up. She was, after all, startled by a stranger in her home at the last moment; lots of women carry knives and might use them if panicked; is this really enough to definitively link her to "The Cinema Killer"? I guess it doesn't matter. Ruth was more interested in the travel, the exploration of character and so on. To be honest, so was i, but I still thought the wrap-up was fairly bland and unconvincing.
What's more, as hinted at previously, believing in most of these people was a tall order, for me. Jims, the gay Conservative MP living a lie, getting married to some girl he apparently didn't know all that well just for the trophy factor and the heteronormative/traditional family values points. Matthew, the guy with a pathological aversion to food who somehow learns to conquer his difficulties by being on a television show. michelle, matthew's huge wife, who is so cross with her neighbour for not-all-that-much that she'll never be able to view her the same way again. jeff and all his girlfriends, who wanted to be with him why, exactly? There was charm in some of these people and their depictions, but many of their reactions and motivations were nearly incomprehensible to me. Suppose that's my own fault and not something I should lay at Ruth's door, but I felt like I was tolerant of what I viewed as potential shortcomings only to have my annoyances justified in the end. The book left me with a sort of empty feeling and that's just not something I like, to be blunt.
Besides the incredible characters, the book hinges on the premise that a mousey little woman was able to stab two people to death in public places without really being noticed. We're supposed to believe this simply because she's crazy. She's also fastidious to a near pathological degree, though. I don't know if Ruth Rendell has thought much about murder by stabbings, and while I've never born witness to one, myself, I've known people who were the victims of knife attacks and they are anything but clean and quiet. Stabbing someone to death means an arduous and protracted struggle; it means noise; it means lots of blood. Even if you took someone by surprise, your chances of delivering a fatal blow aren't very high unless you are incredibly determined, and this would apply to someone who was experienced in wielding a knife for offensive purposes, something which Araminta Knox certainly isn't. The idea that someone so obsessed with cleanliness would choose this method of execution struck me as a bit preposterous, even if she did think she was somehow slaying ghosts. I usually have no trouble suspending disbelief if necessary when reading a good book, but this one started to have enough stacked up against it that by the end I was just done with giving Ruth a pass.
July 29, 2009
This was a good read. Instead of figuring out whodunnit, we are taxed with whosolvzit. We have an omniscient view of the murder from soup to nuts. We see the situation forming, we see the murderer and the victim do their dance until they inevitably come together and the murderer spins away to get on with life. Then we wait while we wonder if the murderer will be discovered and we sort of hope not. Like most cozies, the victim seems to have deserved something, if not actual death. Rendell has manipulated our feelings and, in fact, one of the characters unwittingly discusses the the core at the center of the nub of the gist of this story: when is murder not murder? When is it not a sin? When does a murderer not deserve punishment? Is this even possible?
We also see how a murder investigation destroys the social fabric. Neighbors no longer trust each other. There's an amusing side-story of a closeted gay MP who tries to get himself a "beard" but the murder affects this as well. As in any good cozy, true tragedy is skirted, the gore is limited, and the world is righted in the end.
We also see how a murder investigation destroys the social fabric. Neighbors no longer trust each other. There's an amusing side-story of a closeted gay MP who tries to get himself a "beard" but the murder affects this as well. As in any good cozy, true tragedy is skirted, the gore is limited, and the world is righted in the end.
May 19, 2017
I stopped reading this book. I love Ruth Rendell because her stories are so quirky. This one was just too disorganized with too many oddball characters floating around. They never seemed to jell. After awhile I just questioned why I was continuing to read it as there are so many good books out there for me to enjoy. Not worth my time.
November 12, 2019
El título original lo dice todo: "Adán y Eva y pellízcame" Dudo mucho que se pueda poner un título peor que este. Pues con todo y con eso es lo mejor de la novela *guiño, guiño*
Mi reseña para esta obra se podría condensar en una palabra BASURA. La trama es insulsa, con suspense inexistente, trozos de historias diversas metidas con calzador, personajes risibles... Supongo que entre sus más de 75 novelas tendrá que tener muchas buenas pero desde luego esta es una castaña que no hay por dónde cojerla.
Mi reseña para esta obra se podría condensar en una palabra BASURA. La trama es insulsa, con suspense inexistente, trozos de historias diversas metidas con calzador, personajes risibles... Supongo que entre sus más de 75 novelas tendrá que tener muchas buenas pero desde luego esta es una castaña que no hay por dónde cojerla.
March 1, 2020
I read this book because I read a couple of critiques that said it was a good example of something or other and because I liked the premise: that Minty sees ghosts and has a knife strapped to her hip - for the purpose of ridding herself of them.
It's a long book with many characters. Not sure it needed so many in order to tell the core of the story, but when you think that each set of characters lives their own little story then you realise that you're getting many stories in one volume. Good value for money.
Minty is a nice part of these whole, but the favourite story for me was the one about the thin guy married to the fat girl. Over the course of the book, he recovers from his eating disorder and starts to put on weight and she goes on a diet, reversed her weight gain and becomes the size 16 she used to be many years before. I like stories like that.
This is a nice book with many interesting facets and a compelling momentum to it as the end approaches but it's not really my cup of tea. It's all a bit twee and contrived. I think that if I read anymore Ruth Rendell I'll choose a shorter one next time.
For fans of the author only.
It's a long book with many characters. Not sure it needed so many in order to tell the core of the story, but when you think that each set of characters lives their own little story then you realise that you're getting many stories in one volume. Good value for money.
Minty is a nice part of these whole, but the favourite story for me was the one about the thin guy married to the fat girl. Over the course of the book, he recovers from his eating disorder and starts to put on weight and she goes on a diet, reversed her weight gain and becomes the size 16 she used to be many years before. I like stories like that.
This is a nice book with many interesting facets and a compelling momentum to it as the end approaches but it's not really my cup of tea. It's all a bit twee and contrived. I think that if I read anymore Ruth Rendell I'll choose a shorter one next time.
For fans of the author only.
October 13, 2021
I usually love Ruth Rendell, but this really dragged on for me. Just pages upon pages of drivel and details, children crying and Minty washing her hands; I got halfway before I just started skimming the chapters. I just wanted to be done. The story was interesting, and I knew it was coming to a good point, but it just took so doggone long to get there that I was barely hanging on by the last chapter.
June 26, 2016
This has been my blind date with a book after a long time. I had picked it up from a used bookseller in Fort, Mumbai. The characters are strange (which is good.) The plot is a good one but it fails to amaze after the midway. Adam and Eve and Pinch Me is a okayish yet frustrating book at times.
Read
June 13, 2025Unfortunately, DNFing this at 53%.
Ruth Rendell aka Barbara Vine has been hit or miss for me, and although I loved A Sight for Sore Eyes, and this one was said to be of a similar structure, Adam and Eve and Pinch Me is a miss.
The structure that she so masterfully executed in A Sight for Sore Eyes is to take a few individual storylines and have them converge towards the end. Totally my jam. Unfortunately with Adam and Eve and Pinch Me, I found this a chore to get through.
I didn't feel much towards the characters, and there was a lot of repetition in the narrative, and by the halfway point I felt as if I had read over 300 pages, where the actual length of the novel is just under 400.
Anytime I'm looking for reasons to continue something is a red flag for me, and I have been doing this for the past two days.
Time to drop it and move on.
Ruth Rendell aka Barbara Vine has been hit or miss for me, and although I loved A Sight for Sore Eyes, and this one was said to be of a similar structure, Adam and Eve and Pinch Me is a miss.
The structure that she so masterfully executed in A Sight for Sore Eyes is to take a few individual storylines and have them converge towards the end. Totally my jam. Unfortunately with Adam and Eve and Pinch Me, I found this a chore to get through.
I didn't feel much towards the characters, and there was a lot of repetition in the narrative, and by the halfway point I felt as if I had read over 300 pages, where the actual length of the novel is just under 400.
Anytime I'm looking for reasons to continue something is a red flag for me, and I have been doing this for the past two days.
Time to drop it and move on.
November 21, 2020
Having read and admired Barbara Vine's A Dark Adapted Eye a few years ago I thought I'd try a Ruth Rendell. This one seemed to have garnered a lot of accolades so I thought I'd start here. But I was very disappointed. I guess I expected a thriller or mystery or suspense, but I don't think this qualifies as any of these. Certainly not a mystery, as there is none. We know the murderer and the murdered and the why's and wherefore's. How this comes to be woven through the inter-connected cast and what spins out of it as a consequence is the meat of the novel. Perhaps you could call it a suspense, but I didn't find it suspenseful. My problem was that I didn't find any of the characters emotionally engaging or particularly interesting. I've read that Rendell depicts 'quirky' characters with great insight and skill but to me the whole lot of them were cardboard cutouts. And the narrator's detached, wry tone reminded me of Fay Weldon, only without the humour. Wow, I'm sorry. This is turning into a bit of a demolition job. Yes, I can see the skill behind the plotting, but not the point of it. The book just left me cold from beginning to end.
July 8, 2012
I've heard wonderful things about Ruth Rendell for years -- decades, even -- but had only read one of her books until a few weeks ago. Even this one was rather a happy accident -- I needed books to "bring with me" to NYC on my Kindle, and this book was actually available for electronic loan from my library. I can confirm, once again, that Rendell is a master of her craft!
Honestly, though, I'm not sure that I'd have kept reading if my only other choice was James Patterson (who, also honestly, wasn't that bad). Part of why this book was so magnificent was that the skill with which Rendell painted unique characters, including those things that torment their every waking moment. At points, the book was painful to read -- beautiful, but painful -- and I had to keep convincing myself that Rendell wouldn't condemn all of her characters to tragic ends. I'm glad I kept reading, not least because Rendell brought everything together in a way I wouldn't have wanted to miss.
Honestly, though, I'm not sure that I'd have kept reading if my only other choice was James Patterson (who, also honestly, wasn't that bad). Part of why this book was so magnificent was that the skill with which Rendell painted unique characters, including those things that torment their every waking moment. At points, the book was painful to read -- beautiful, but painful -- and I had to keep convincing myself that Rendell wouldn't condemn all of her characters to tragic ends. I'm glad I kept reading, not least because Rendell brought everything together in a way I wouldn't have wanted to miss.
March 15, 2012
I have no idea how this book can be taken seiously. I got this book for free and it was still too much. The long descriptions are tedious and it feels as though Rendell writes as if she doesn't know how humans actually interact or feel emotion. The dialogue is fake and borderline offensive. I recommend reading this only when drunk - that's the only way I could get through it.
Read
July 20, 2025Another magnificent 'whydunnit' from Ruth Rendell. As is her usual practice, the reader knows the identity of the murderer before we're halfway through the book. In this case, the murderer is tremendously sympathetic; the murder victim is someone the world is just as well off without. Though the murderer's situation complicates further as the novel progresses, the reader is always aware of the insanity that rules the murderer's mind. For the most part, we know why the murderer is insane. The jacket copy refers to "a series of vicious stabbing deaths," which is inaccurate with respect to what really happens in the story. There are only two stabbing deaths, and of those, only the second is completely without motivation--at least completely without in any logical sense. The murders are in no sense 'justified'; but the reader is in little doubt concerning why things happen as they do. Also as usual, most people involved in the investigation have something they'd rather hide, and make mistakes accordingly lying to investigators, etc. In general, most of what goes wrong throughout the novel is the fault of (or at the very least initiated by the reprehensible behaviour of) the first of the murder victims. And while that victim does not necessarily deserve to die, at the same time many, many people are better off with the victim no longer around to act in the various ways that have caused all the problems in the first place. It is an interesting moral narrative.
September 19, 2024
meandering and overwritten
Read
April 15, 2025This settled it. I apparently just don’t like Ruth Rendell’s voice.
DNF.
DNF.
April 20, 2015
The aptly named Jeff Leach is a rogue. An immoral ladies man, he finds attractive women with their own property and moves in with them, gets them to give him ‘loans’ (and sometimes to take out fresh mortgages on their homes) and then dumps them to disappear with his next conquest. In the background are the wife and two kids he’s also abandoned, but who he does drift back occasionally to see – even if he offers nothing in the way of support. His is a complex and difficult to follow life, which touches many others and leaves a lot of bad feeling and grudges. So that when he’s murdered in the Odeon Marble Arch one afternoon (at a showing of The House on Haunted Hill) there are a lot of avenues for the police to explore.
One of the best things about this highly entertaining tale of deceit and murder, is how unpredictable it all is. The normal crime novel will have a brief introduction of the characters, a dreadful murder will take place, there will be red herrings and possibly other deaths, until the least likely suspect will be revealed as the killer. ‘Adam and Eve and Pinch Me’ differs from all of that. It actually starts out as a ghost story, as we meet poor Anaminta Knox, or Minty – whose sheltered life and repressed emotions are manifesting themselves in extreme cleanliness. She thinks she sees the ghost of her dead fiancée, and although at first glance she’d appear to be just a strange little thing in a strange old house, tragic events arise from those visions.
I do enjoy a book which takes its own path, where it’s impossible to predict what will happen next. I also like a book which populates itself with an array of interesting characters, who are built up over the course of the plot so that they are more than just a sum of their flaws and neuroses. It isn’t a perfect novel – wouldn’t, for instance, Minty have seen Jeff’s face in the newspapers at least once? – but it is one of the most interesting and entertaining crime stories I’ve read in a long while.
One of the best things about this highly entertaining tale of deceit and murder, is how unpredictable it all is. The normal crime novel will have a brief introduction of the characters, a dreadful murder will take place, there will be red herrings and possibly other deaths, until the least likely suspect will be revealed as the killer. ‘Adam and Eve and Pinch Me’ differs from all of that. It actually starts out as a ghost story, as we meet poor Anaminta Knox, or Minty – whose sheltered life and repressed emotions are manifesting themselves in extreme cleanliness. She thinks she sees the ghost of her dead fiancée, and although at first glance she’d appear to be just a strange little thing in a strange old house, tragic events arise from those visions.
I do enjoy a book which takes its own path, where it’s impossible to predict what will happen next. I also like a book which populates itself with an array of interesting characters, who are built up over the course of the plot so that they are more than just a sum of their flaws and neuroses. It isn’t a perfect novel – wouldn’t, for instance, Minty have seen Jeff’s face in the newspapers at least once? – but it is one of the most interesting and entertaining crime stories I’ve read in a long while.
July 16, 2013
The only reason I managed to muddle my way through to the end of this piece of crap is because I am a fan of Jasper Fforde and his Thursday Next series. After the first third of the book, the purpose of reading it was not to find out what happened (that was fairly obvious from the beginning) but rather to imagine it as a book needing Thursday's attention. A book invaded by other characters--in this case characters from nursery rhymes.
Let's see....there's Jack Sprat who could eat no fat, his wife who could eat no lean. And there's Georgie Porgie who kissed the girls and made them cry. There was also a group of unknown characters who mumbled around in the background...the original characters these nursery rhyme'rs had shoved offstage?
I kept checking for footnotes--Thursday's method of communicating with her superiors at the Literary Detective's Division about what's going on--but unfortunately found none. Pity. If Rendell had included these, she may have been on to something. As it was, she only succeeded in embarrassing herself.
Let's see....there's Jack Sprat who could eat no fat, his wife who could eat no lean. And there's Georgie Porgie who kissed the girls and made them cry. There was also a group of unknown characters who mumbled around in the background...the original characters these nursery rhyme'rs had shoved offstage?
I kept checking for footnotes--Thursday's method of communicating with her superiors at the Literary Detective's Division about what's going on--but unfortunately found none. Pity. If Rendell had included these, she may have been on to something. As it was, she only succeeded in embarrassing herself.
October 21, 2012
Wow! This is a perfect book to read in Halloween season (as I happened to have done) because it's wonderfully weird. We begin with a sweet young woman who's been seduced and abandoned-- and gradually realize that her behavior isn't exactly normal, never mind the fact that her house is haunted. The other characters in the book are sympathetic and repellent by turns. And talk about turns-- the plot is crammed full of surprises. (And I'm not offering any detail because I want you, Dear Fellow Reader, to enjoy them as much as I did.)
This is the kind of book that I didn't want to set down because I could hardly wait to find out WHAT HAPPENS in the intermingled lives of these quirky characters-- but I forced myself to go slow because I didn't want the reading experience to end too soon. GREAT fun.
This is the kind of book that I didn't want to set down because I could hardly wait to find out WHAT HAPPENS in the intermingled lives of these quirky characters-- but I forced myself to go slow because I didn't want the reading experience to end too soon. GREAT fun.
June 13, 2010
This book had some good potential, but ultimately fell flat.
Minty, an reclusive clean freak with other OCD tendencies, finds out that her boyfriend Jock has died in a Tube accident. But Jock has more than one name, more than one love, and has told countless lies. Things start to unravel when some of the women he's conned come into contact with eachother.
I found this book easy to get through, but when it was said and done, I wasn't satisfied. I think the author did not do a good job of making Minty all that attractive to the reader. It is easy to feel pity for her, but she is schizophrenic enough that it was hard for me to feel real empathy for her.
It's an ok read to pass the time.
Minty, an reclusive clean freak with other OCD tendencies, finds out that her boyfriend Jock has died in a Tube accident. But Jock has more than one name, more than one love, and has told countless lies. Things start to unravel when some of the women he's conned come into contact with eachother.
I found this book easy to get through, but when it was said and done, I wasn't satisfied. I think the author did not do a good job of making Minty all that attractive to the reader. It is easy to feel pity for her, but she is schizophrenic enough that it was hard for me to feel real empathy for her.
It's an ok read to pass the time.
February 5, 2013
Although I did enjoy this a little more than some of Rendell's other works I still found myself getting somewhat irritated by her characters as they were rather weak and let themselves be dragged along by the whims of the men in their lives. The story itself was very good showing the damage that one man can do if he were so inclined and how the smallest things can escalate out of control and end in a murder or two. Of all the characters in this book the only one I really felt any compassion for was Minty, whose obsessions with cleanliness get out of control and result in hallucinations from which she is unable to escape, despite drastic measures. Rendell's writing is of a good quality and it does bring her stories and characters to life, unfortunatly her characters are just not for me.
January 11, 2011
Not really my cup of tea: in general, I'm not as much a fan of mysteries where the tension lies in knowing whodunit and wondering how/when/if he or she will be caught. Here though, there's simply not a lot of tension to begin with: Araminta's condition steadily worsens and it's pretty easy to see how the main murder will occur and the three main female characters' lives intersect with that event. Although Minty is a large driving force of the novel, I grew bored pretty quickly with the detailed descriptions of her ritual cleanliness and lonely life, preferring the short snippets of Zillah and Fiona.
September 7, 2021
Rendell's psychological stories vary in degree, sometimes full of grotesque and unpleasant characters, with long descriptions of things that don't seem relevant; sometimes, like this story, intricate and full of interesting characters, with a wry humour, and with the background detail all there because it's necessary.
Three stories eventually cohere into one big story, and the surprise halfway through causes repercussions for all the characters who are unwittingly involved. To say anymore would be to give more than enough away. This is well worth a read.
Three stories eventually cohere into one big story, and the surprise halfway through causes repercussions for all the characters who are unwittingly involved. To say anymore would be to give more than enough away. This is well worth a read.
April 21, 2013
I have read many books by Ruth Rendell and in some ways this was typical Ruth Rendell. Rendell is able to create and develop characters like no one else. She has the ability to uncover people's worst personalities. The storyline itself was interesting, but there was something about one of the characters (Minty) that just was unbelievable. I will continue to read Rendell's books with the hope that the next one will be better.
May 10, 2013
This book was just not up to Ruth Rendall's usual standards. It meandered here and there, casually linking the lives of three women who knew the murder victim by various names.
You knew from the beginning who the murderer was but the book rambled on for 400 some pages.
I like a tight, suspenseful mystery, and this was not it. The most suspense was created by the editor who wrote the notes for the back cover.
You knew from the beginning who the murderer was but the book rambled on for 400 some pages.
I like a tight, suspenseful mystery, and this was not it. The most suspense was created by the editor who wrote the notes for the back cover.
October 25, 2016
This is the second time I've read this book. It's one of those books that I actually purchased about 12 years ago and read it and then it's been sitting in my bookcase. I remember I enjoyed it the first time around and I enjoyed it again this time. I felt like it was a good suspense story and I was keenly interested to see how it was all going to end.
September 7, 2014
This was a very interesting and well played out story. The story was also a good "closing" to my recent Hardy read-a-thon. A big part of the action took place in 21st century Wessex. And, Wessex was a place of Hardy's creation.
November 17, 2007
This book was really strange. That's about all I have to say about it.
February 25, 2008
Bizarre and pointless.
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