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I Start Counting
Rx for suspense: A quiet English town, a strangler on the loose...and a young girl who suspects who he is.
First published January 1, 1966
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 6, 2010
I don't know quite why I love this little suspense so much to the point of having to call it one of my all time favorites. Maybe it is because I grew up with it. It first come to my attention in condensed version before I was lucky enough to stumble on a rare version of the complete book. Now it is more readily available. Written by English screenwriter Lindop, the characters are so outlandish and thoroughly enjoyable that I can never put it down whenever I pick it up to reread. The protagonist is a 14 year old orphan who doesn't have anything figured out, but she is so loyal and such a decent person. Unfortunately she is short on common sense as are most girls her age. The book is about a serial killer, but there is nothing repellent about the story, which is humorous and heartwarming. I think its twists and turns make it a good suspense. It has you guessing until the end. Some people may find her crush on her older "not brother" somewhat hard to take, but I found the story interesting and unusual, certainly not a "stiff upper lip" English tale. Lindop's depiction of relations such as Granddad and Aunt Rene Tindall are laugh out loud funny. I haven't seen the screen adaptation yet, but I doubt that I will like it as much as the charming book. From a brief viewing of YouTube, the film version seems to have much of the original humor written out of it, and I think the characters are every bit as important to this story as the plot. My recommendation: read the book.
May 8, 2017
British writer Audrey Erskine Lindop (1920–1986) wrote the first of her eight suspense novels in 1953, with three of them later made into movies, including I Start Counting (featuring a teenage Jenny Agutter in her first big-screen starring role). The novel itself went on to win the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière - International Category in 1967.
I Start Counting centers on 14-year-old orphan Wynne Kinch, growing up in during the prosperous but tumultous 1960s Britain. Her working-class family—which includes her aunt by marriage who she calls Mum, her granddad, and her cousin—had been evicted from their Collins Wood home to make for a new development. But even after moving to a brand-spanking new high-rise council flat, Wynne sneaks back to the old beloved homestead, and it is there that a mystery begins to unfold.
Wynne has an intense crush on her 32-year-old step-cousin, George, and finds he's been in the old Collins Wood place recently and had lied about what he was doing. When she further spies on him, she sees scratches on his back and finds a bloody sweater he threw in the trash, making her suspect George is the serial strangler of several local teenage girls. Her loyalty to him and her attempts to protect him eventually draw the attention of the police, throw the members of her blended family into turmoil, and ultimately lead to tragedy.
The title I Start Counting refers to Wynne's philosophy of counting to "drown out the thought that was scaring you," yet the novel itself isn't a dark thriller, but rather a coming-of-age tale with warmth, humor, and an entertaining cast of characters that incluces Wynne's boy-crazy pal Corinne, Wynne's doom-laden sister Aunt Rene Tyndall, George's high-strung half-brother Len, Wynne's cousin Helene, and her north-country "Mum." But the story would fall apart if it weren't grounded in the POV of the intelligent, funny, passionate Wynne, who Lindop has painted with a wholly sympathetic brush.
I Start Counting centers on 14-year-old orphan Wynne Kinch, growing up in during the prosperous but tumultous 1960s Britain. Her working-class family—which includes her aunt by marriage who she calls Mum, her granddad, and her cousin—had been evicted from their Collins Wood home to make for a new development. But even after moving to a brand-spanking new high-rise council flat, Wynne sneaks back to the old beloved homestead, and it is there that a mystery begins to unfold.
Wynne has an intense crush on her 32-year-old step-cousin, George, and finds he's been in the old Collins Wood place recently and had lied about what he was doing. When she further spies on him, she sees scratches on his back and finds a bloody sweater he threw in the trash, making her suspect George is the serial strangler of several local teenage girls. Her loyalty to him and her attempts to protect him eventually draw the attention of the police, throw the members of her blended family into turmoil, and ultimately lead to tragedy.
The title I Start Counting refers to Wynne's philosophy of counting to "drown out the thought that was scaring you," yet the novel itself isn't a dark thriller, but rather a coming-of-age tale with warmth, humor, and an entertaining cast of characters that incluces Wynne's boy-crazy pal Corinne, Wynne's doom-laden sister Aunt Rene Tyndall, George's high-strung half-brother Len, Wynne's cousin Helene, and her north-country "Mum." But the story would fall apart if it weren't grounded in the POV of the intelligent, funny, passionate Wynne, who Lindop has painted with a wholly sympathetic brush.
September 19, 2009
I read this years ago and have looked for it ever since. (Sadly, it's out of print). Written--and set--in the 1960s in England, it's about a teenage girl whose bucolic village is being victimized by a strangler. The girl, Wynne, slowly comes to fear the involvement of her step-cousin, a young man she idolizes. Because of her sincere but misguided attempts to protect him, the police end up suspecting him, too, and all the members of her blended family eventually become suspicious of one another. It's an entertaining blend of suspense, horror, humor, and sentiment, as well as a thoughtful look at small-town England in the throes of social change, written during the time it was happening.
July 12, 2012
As others have mentioned on here, I don't know why I remember this book with such fondness either, but I do recall reading it when a teen (the Reader's Digest version) and loving it! So much so, I wanted to find it again and although the original book is out of print, I was able to find a Reader's Digest version of it on Amazon and ordered it. Looking forward to reading it again to see why I was so taken with it! BTW, there are several reasonably priced Reader's Digest versions of it on Amazon as of this writing if anyone is looking for any version of it.
November 15, 2009
I read this book when I was about 12 years old. I loved it, it left a distinct impression upon me. The mystery and the dialogue between some of the main characters made it a very great read. I'd love to find it and read it all over again all these years later.
June 17, 2009
Loved this book. A good mystery read. This is a comforting reread.
May 2, 2020
Like other reviewers I have to confess that this story has obsessed me since I first read it decades ago, as if it were living in my brain in a paisley-wall-papered r0om with
British pop music, miniskirts, suffocating family flats, the thrill of young love and the terror of finding out exactly who the strangler is ... Why does this come to mind again and again, rising up like a mermaid who travels in on a tide? Hey, does anyone have a copy so I can read the whole book? I found it in a condensed version in Reader's Digest and have been searching for it ever since...
British pop music, miniskirts, suffocating family flats, the thrill of young love and the terror of finding out exactly who the strangler is ... Why does this come to mind again and again, rising up like a mermaid who travels in on a tide? Hey, does anyone have a copy so I can read the whole book? I found it in a condensed version in Reader's Digest and have been searching for it ever since...
July 29, 2019
not the most exciting whodunnit ever.
May 8, 2017
Fourteen year old Wynne lives in a midlands town with her aunt by marriage, her granddad, and her cousins. The person she loves the most though is her step-cousin George, her aunt's son by her first marriage, and therefore (as Wynne points out) no blood relation to her at all. Wynne loves George with an intense, all-consuming adoration. George is an attractive man in his thirties, who is unmarried, his fiancee Clare having been killed in a motor bike accident years before. The family now live in a bright, modern flat, but Wynne misses their old home in the more rural area of Collins Wood, and unbeknown to the rest of her family returns there frequently.
The town Wynne and her family live in is being terrorised by a mystery serial killer who is strangling teenage girls. A series of incidents leads Wynne to believe that her adored George may be the killer, and she sets out to find out the truth, and to protect George from discovery. You can see that things are heading for tragedy, though you don't know exactly what form the tragedy will take, or whether Wynne might even be right about George after all.
What makes this tense thriller so enjoyable are the strong characters. Everyone in the book is interesting, and the dialogue is totally natural and believable, as is the way the characters all relate to each other. In fact, even without the suspenceful plot, it would still be enjoyable to read. Even the rather unpleasant Corinne,Wynne's rude, arrogant, sexually precocious friend, can arouse sympathy, a spoilt only child whose mother dotes on her and is blind to her faults, she is still somewhat pathetic, never given any guidance or discipline, as Wynne points out, she's like a puppy that has never been trained.
It's the sort of book that ends with you wanting to know more about what happens to the characters, you feel sorry to say goodbye to them all.
The town Wynne and her family live in is being terrorised by a mystery serial killer who is strangling teenage girls. A series of incidents leads Wynne to believe that her adored George may be the killer, and she sets out to find out the truth, and to protect George from discovery. You can see that things are heading for tragedy, though you don't know exactly what form the tragedy will take, or whether Wynne might even be right about George after all.
What makes this tense thriller so enjoyable are the strong characters. Everyone in the book is interesting, and the dialogue is totally natural and believable, as is the way the characters all relate to each other. In fact, even without the suspenceful plot, it would still be enjoyable to read. Even the rather unpleasant Corinne,Wynne's rude, arrogant, sexually precocious friend, can arouse sympathy, a spoilt only child whose mother dotes on her and is blind to her faults, she is still somewhat pathetic, never given any guidance or discipline, as Wynne points out, she's like a puppy that has never been trained.
It's the sort of book that ends with you wanting to know more about what happens to the characters, you feel sorry to say goodbye to them all.
March 10, 2016
What a strange book.
To be fair, part of my disappointment was that I thought it was a true murder mystery, a genre that seems to be perfected by English writers.
However, the murder aspect is just a backdrop. A window dressing, if you will, for an unfortunate teenage girl who is completely and utterly nuts.
Wynne is a bona-fide orphan who lives with her extended/adoptive family, including a quasi-stepbrother whom she has a massive crush on. Her mom is pretty much the only likeable character in the book, a woman who loves and protects her unconventional family. Wynne starts to suspect that her crush may be responsible for a series of brutal murders plaguing her small town.
Wynne's only friend is verbally abusive, though Wynne holds her own and has no trouble coming up with impressive lies at the drop of a hat.
I did enjoy the presentation of a grittier England juxtapositioned with the jaunty prose I so often associate with English writers. This isn't an England for cozy mysteries to read with a pot of tea; it's a psychological thriller wrapped up in a tea cozy.
Sadly, I just didn't get it.
October 20, 2015
I am so upset about how this book turned out. I searched high and low to find a copy that I was willing to pay the price for, but I never could, and then I found it on Ebay in a book lot. It wasn't as cheap as I wanted, but tolerable.
I just knew this book was going to be fantastic. The Houston chronicle declared that it was a hair-raising chiller, and Pittsburgh Press said it was one of the scariest screamers in a long time.
I'm not quite sure which book they read, but it could not have been I Start Counting. Chiller? Not even close. The characters had thick accents, which made some of the dialogue hard to decipher. There was a lot of humorous family stuff, but I wasn't exactly looking for a laugh.
I'm going to have to start watching out for which books I buy, because I have spent a lot of money that could have been wasted on something else.
I just knew this book was going to be fantastic. The Houston chronicle declared that it was a hair-raising chiller, and Pittsburgh Press said it was one of the scariest screamers in a long time.
I'm not quite sure which book they read, but it could not have been I Start Counting. Chiller? Not even close. The characters had thick accents, which made some of the dialogue hard to decipher. There was a lot of humorous family stuff, but I wasn't exactly looking for a laugh.
I'm going to have to start watching out for which books I buy, because I have spent a lot of money that could have been wasted on something else.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews