What goes around comes around (A Sight for Sore Eyes - Ruth Rendell)

Member Name: sunmeilan

Product:	A Sight for Sore Eyes - Ruth Rendell
Date:	17/02/07 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Chillingly believable

Disadvantages: None really

I've been a fan of Ruth Rendell for some time now, but I am well aware that although most of her books are excellent, some of them are real duds. I tend to be particularly suspicious of the non-Inspector Wexford books. The last one I read, Rottweiler, was so bad I nearly gave it up half way through (which bearing in mind my threshold for rubbish is pretty amazing). This one, thankfully, is one of her better books.

The story revolves around Teddy, brought up in a family that showed no love and Francine, whose mother was murdered while she, a child at the time, was in the house. Teddy is unable to express any feelings; he despises most people who try to get close to him, but when he meets Francine, he knows that he has to possess her. Francine, charmed by his good looks and pushed into his arms by her mentally unstable stepmother, is more than happy to go along with his slightly strange behaviour.

In Teddy's desire to immortalise Francine's beauty, he comes across the house of a client that meets his obsession to find the perfect background for Francine. It also happens to have a cellar, where he hides the body of the client after he has murdered her, as well as the body of his uncle. Unaware of this, Francine is more concerned with escaping the clutches of her stepmother, who is terrified of losing Francine. Will Francine find out what Teddy is really like before it is too late? Or will she end up dead in the cellar too? And will she ever find out the truth about her mother's murderer?

One thing Ruth Rendell can do well is to create psychologically unstable characters who are completely realistic at the same time. Teddy appears to have no feelings for anyone, apart from Francine. He has relationships with people so that he can get what he needs out of them; this is, after all, the way he was treated as he was growing up. There is something very chilling about the way that he sees the world in his own particular way and there is never any doubt that his relationship with Francine will be anything other than abnormal. I think the sign of a good book is when you can still remember it years after having read it for the first time; in this case, Teddy stands out for me as one of the creepier characters I have come across.

Francine does not stand out as much, but she is still a very interesting character. Having found her mother murdered as a young child, she didn't speak for months and has always had the need for closure at the back of her mind. In her Gap year, she is horrified to discover that her stepmother and former psychologist is beginning to lose her mind and her desire to escape from a situation she can do nothing about is strong. Rendell just manages to cling on to reality with Francine; it is hard to believe that many girls in her situation would not be aware that there was something terribly wrong with Teddy, but because of her background and age, it is just about okay.

Teddy's client, Harriet, who he murders so that he can live in her house, is a slightly odd addition to the book. Harriet and the house in which she lives was painted by a famous artist in the 1960s and we follow the story of Harriet's life as a sub-plot. I didn't really see the point in all this and would have preferred to concentrate on the main story rather than have to keep dipping into someone else's life all the time.

I thought the ending of this book was particularly good. The problem with police procedurals, like the Wexford books, is that you pretty much know that the bad guys are going to get caught in the end. With this book, there is no such knowledge and it really did take me by surprise as I read the last few pages.

This is more of a psychological thriller than crime fiction, so if you don't like thrillers, you're probably not going to like this. Otherwise, it is a pretty good addition to anyone's reading list. It doesn't have the shock factor of Stephen King's or Thomas Harris' work, but it is also far more realistic and because of that, scarier. Recommended.

The book is available from play.com for £5.49. Published by Arrow, it has 417 pages. ISBN: 9780099271451

Summary: One of Rendell's better books