The House of Stairs - Barbara Vine

A Fatal Inversion - Barbara Vine

be able to put this down. And when you have finished it, it won t be long before you have to pick it up and read it again. Barbara Vine is the pseudonym of Ruth Rendell, the internationally famous crime writer. She writes as Vine when the story is meatier and more deeply psychological. This I think is her masterpiece. It was written in 1987 and won the Gold Dagger award. It was then short-listed for the Dagger of Daggers, an award made for the Gold Dagger books over a 50-year spread. I won t spoil it for you by telling the story in detail, but will give an outline to give you an idea of this book, and hope that you will then go off and read it! Set in the ...

A Fatal Inversion - Barbara Vine

be able to put this down. And when you have finished it, it won t be long before you have to pick it up and read it again. Barbara Vine is the pseudonym of Ruth Rendell, the internationally famous crime writer. She writes as Vine when the story is meatier and more deeply psychological. This I think is her masterpiece. It was written in 1987 and won the Gold Dagger award. It was then short-listed for the Dagger of Daggers, an award made for the Gold Dagger books over a 50-year spread. I won t spoil it for you by telling the story in detail, but will give an outline to give you an idea of this book, and hope that you will then go off and read it! Set in the ...

Grasshopper - Barbara Vine

Introduction I’ve read a couple of Barbara Vine novels before that I have thoroughly enjoyed, so had high expectations of this. Barabara Vine is a pen name for Ruth Rendell, but she may as well be a completely different author. The Barbara Vine books are based far more around characters rather than situations and she allows the reader to get deeply into the characters’ personalities. Yet, they are far more believable that some of Ruth Rendell’s non-Wexford books. The story Clodagh, who recently lost her best friend and lover when he was electrocuted while climbing a pylon (the grasshopper of the title) after encouragement from Clodagh, is packed off to London by ...

Grasshopper - Barbara Vine

Introduction I’ve read a couple of Barbara Vine novels before that I have thoroughly enjoyed, so had high expectations of this. Barabara Vine is a pen name for Ruth Rendell, but she may as well be a completely different author. The Barbara Vine books are based far more around characters rather than situations and she allows the reader to get deeply into the characters’ personalities. Yet, they are far more believable that some of Ruth Rendell’s non-Wexford books. The story Clodagh, who recently lost her best friend and lover when he was electrocuted while climbing a pylon (the grasshopper of the title) after encouragement from Clodagh, is packed off to London by ...

The Minotaur - Barbara Vine

"The Minotaur" is the twelfth and most recent novel by Barbara Vine, who is, of course, the alter ego of the highly successful crime novelist Ruth Rendell. The Vine novels are, I think, intended to be the darker, more psychological, less crime-genre side of Rendell s writing, giving her the opportunity to branch out in new directions… although to be honest, I m not convinced they are really all that much different from the (non-Wexford) novels she writes under her own name. The story is narrated by Kerstin Kvist, who as a young woman in the late 1960s comes from Sweden to the Essex countryside in order to work for the Cosway family; ostensibly, as a carer for ...

The Minotaur - Barbara Vine

"The Minotaur" is the twelfth and most recent novel by Barbara Vine, who is, of course, the alter ego of the highly successful crime novelist Ruth Rendell. The Vine novels are, I think, intended to be the darker, more psychological, less crime-genre side of Rendell s writing, giving her the opportunity to branch out in new directions… although to be honest, I m not convinced they are really all that much different from the (non-Wexford) novels she writes under her own name. The story is narrated by Kerstin Kvist, who as a young woman in the late 1960s comes from Sweden to the Essex countryside in order to work for the Cosway family; ostensibly, as a carer for ...