22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Her best ever. so it must be pretty damn excellent., February 14, 2002
I have read every single book Ruth Rendell has ever read. Including the Inspector Wexford series, over which i hold no shame about the fact that i don't like them half as much as her psychological thrillers. And this book is the reason why.
Personally, i believe that every sane person should read this book. Rendell is a stunning writer, and the way she mixes contemporay issues and events into the storyline makes the book so realistic, and so so chilling. The way she makes references to recent films, newscasters, and a whole other variety of real things which have actually happened is superb. She mixes sharp bits of non-fiction into thickly plotted fiction, and it comes out as more realistic than it might have been had she not.
The plot to this one is the best one she has come up with yet. i shan't just give a synopsis of it like some reviews do, i really don't need to read a synopsis of a book when i'm trying to find a review, so i'm sur eyou don't either. But just rest assure,s the plot here is a cracker.
She weaves brilliantly the supernatural themes into that of the real life psychology, and it works oh so well. IF she were a lesser writing, the supernatural and the detective side of it would both cancel each other out, but here she mixes each side with great sucess, creating a psychologically gripping novel which you just cannot put down.
Rendell is the only writer who can ever really chill/disturb me. Her psychology is so accurate, and the weird disturbed characters made to seem to real. It is frightening to think that people like that could really be living next door to you, living in your street, on your train as you go to work, on the bus with you, in the cinema with you, in the supermarket with you, ahead of you in the queue. That is yet another of her major strengths. She creates a chilling and disturbing book just by using realism and accurate psychology. It's all very subtle.
She is also excellent at the hoplessness many of her plots convey. the sense of the inevitable, the sense of the train heading toward another on the same rails, and an immiment collision which cannot be stopped. Things are going nice and slowly, events pannining out nicely, until all at once they crash together with devastating consequences for all involved.
Rendell's subsidiary characters are all great too. there are a particularly great "little and large" couple, who create a nice light break at times of high tension.
There are very few characters to like in this book, which may be it's only downside, however, a strength is that even though i didn't lke them, i still cared about what happened to them, and really really wanted to know more about their lives once the book finished. (Tami Hoag is an excellent author if you like feeling that sort of thing.) I was sad to put this book down, as i had waited so long for it. Two years since A Sight for Sore Eyes. I didn't think she could improve on that, but she has. This is a winning book, and it is clear that Rendell cannot put a single foot wrong.
She defines the word superb.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another delicious Rendell, May 2, 2005
This review is from: Adam and Eve and Pinch Me (Paperback)
Because Ruth Rendell's last few outings have been vaguely disappointing, I approached this most recent book with a little reluctance if not outright trepidation. In fact, it sat in my bedside book pile far longer than a Rendell would usually have done in the past. But I needn't have feared...she's back in form and this is an absolutely fascinating character study of men and women and need and manipulation. There are several main characters here whose lives intertwine most unusually, and it is hard to decide who is the best-written of these. They all spring to life with their own unique collections of human foibles and motivations and they are all on a collision course, each with the other. You can see the train wreck coming, but you can't avert your eyes.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Riveting Portrait of Madness, August 10, 2003
This review is from: Adam and Eve and Pinch Me (Paperback)
Ruth Rendell excels in her ability to describe-and shade-the various forms of madness as well as mental illness.
"Adam and Eve and Pinch Me" tells the tale of "Jock Lewis"-also known by several other aliases-who charms various women into believing he is their one and only. And he does this all at the same time. His victims include Fiona, a hardworking merchant banker; Natalie, a sharp journalist; Zillah, the mother of his two children and the only one who is totally on to him (and also his legal wife); and most memorably, Minty, an obsessive compulsive woman who works in a dry cleaning store. Various other sharply drawn characters surround the main ones including Fiona's married neighbors, an anorexic man and his obese wife.
The book focuses on the disappearance-and reappearance-of Jock and his subsequent murder. In many ways, despite his ne'er to do ways, he seems the most stable individual in the entire book. Much of "Adam and Eve and Pinch Me" is spent on the impact of his behavior on those around him and the choices these individuals are forced to make (Zillah, for instance, enters into a bigamous marriage with a gay politician to support her children.)
I recommend this book for those individuals who are fans of Rendell's and the English mystery genre. I caution readers that this is not your typical "Who dunnit?"--in many ways it is a "Why did he or she do it and who else could have?"
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