A Dark-Adapted Eye (Plume) [Mass Market Paperback]

Ruth Rendell (Author), Barbara Vine (Pseudonym)

Book Description

Series: Plume | Publication Date: October 1, 1993

The award-winning author and acclaimed mistress of suspense delves deeply into the heart of a family to uncover the circumstances that lead to murder more than thirty years ago. The story of a family's long-buried secret past is revealed--and the deadly consequences. Mystery Guild Selection. Doubleday Alternate.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Writing under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, Ruth Rendell departs from her famous detective team of Wexford and Burden to tell a gripping tale of family madness. Vera Hillyard is a domineering and possessive woman who strives for obsessive control over a malicious older son, a youngest son who is--or isn't--illegitimate, and her younger sister, Eden, who secretly seeks to escape Vera's grasp and instead provokes a murder. This winner of the 1986 Edgar Award for best mystery novel belongs to the genre of old murders reconsidered and the question of who did what to whom and why is teasingly left unresolved.

Review

No other living mystery writer complains more openly about the burden of fans expecting her to bring back series characters when she has other pursuits in mind. In A Dark-Adopted Eye . . . Rendell does what Conan Doyle never could: proves she has something far greater to offer. -- Publishers Weekly

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Plume (October 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452270642
• ISBN-13: 978-0452270640
• Product Dimensions: 4.1 x 0.8 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #880,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine has never written a better book., May 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Dark-Adapted Eye (Plume) (Mass Market Paperback)

Since her first novel, A DARK-ADAPTED EYE, Barbara Vine has written several superb psychological thrillers. A FATAL INVERSION, THE HOUSE OF STAIRS, ANNA'S BOOK, and THE BRIMSTONE WEDDING in particular are exceptional suspense novels. But not one of them comes even close to A DARK-ADAPTED EYE which, after more than a decade, is still the best Rendell/Vine novel to date.

What drove Vera Hillyard to brutally murder her younger sister Eden? The answer turns out to be far more complex than the question. Wryly narrated by their niece, Faith Severn, this flat-out brilliant story brings to light a hidden world of love, lust, greed, and pain. Vine's characters aren't just well-developed; they are completely real and totally convincing. What distinguishes A DARK-ADAPTED EYE from Rendell/Vine's other novels is that aside from the usual intricate plotting and realistic sense of place, the conclusion is gut-wrenchingly emotional. As the inevitable tragedy approaches, the suspense escalates to a fevered pitch, and the final climax manages to be riveting and deeply moving. More than any of her other books, A DARK-ADAPTED EYE shows that the mystery genre is not at all inferior to serious fiction; on the contrary, the mystery genre at its best delivers the best that the literary world can offer.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A marvelous mystery, September 9, 2001

By 

Jay Dickson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Dark-Adapted Eye (Plume) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is one of the most sophisticated mysteries in years, and intitated a whole series of superior psychological novels from Ruth Rendell under the nom de plume Barbara Vine. The work begins with the sensational headline-grabbing state hanging of Vera Hillyard; the rest of the work is preoccupied with why she was executed and whom she murdered. Although Vera's victim becomes apparent earlier than halfway through the book, the whys of murder are much more intriguing: indeed, the novel purposefully begins with a knotted web of familial Hillyard relations for the reader to enjoy sorting through until it all makes sense.

The tale Vine has to relate is a complex one, extraordinarily deftly told: one has only to see the well-meant expensive botch made of it on British television to see how extraordinarily subtle Vine's art is here. The sense of wartime and postwar atmosphere is marvelously evoked, and the particular attention given here to WWII makeup and glamor (a favorite preoccupation of Barbara Vine's) is an especially intriguing and enjoyable detail.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars As a mystery, only fair, June 20, 2002

By 

Mark S. Winger (Wood Dale, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Dark-Adapted Eye (Plume) (Mass Market Paperback)

I guess I will be the one who appears to disagree with the majority of reviewers of this book. I will agree with the fact that the story is well written and laid out very well by Vine (Rendell). As a work of literature this is definitely a good book. I however, selected this book because it won an Edgar Award for best mystery and had those expectations. The book moves very slowly. I put it down countless times and read other books in the process. I picked it back up because of the wonderful reviews I had seen on Amazon. (I had not read anything by Ruth Rendell or Barbara Vine to compare the style of this book to her other books. According to a note in the back of the book when Rendell writes as Vine, she writes in an entirely different style.) In the end, I wasn't satisfied as a lover of mysteries with the pace or the outcome of the book.

So if you are looking for a fast paced mystery novel then this is not for you. If your expectation is that of a piece of literature that well depicts a society family in 1940s England, and the dysfunctional nature that they try to conceal and how it affects their lives both then and into the present, then this will not disappoint. Just don't expect this book to go quickly.