Customer Reviews

A Demon In My View

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book won Rendell the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award for 1976 (the most important crime fiction awards in Great Britain.) And I can see why. Extremely well crafted, this book stays with you long after reading it. And you'll read it pretty quickly, because this is a tough one to put down. As a longtime Hercule Poirot/Miss Marple/Agatha Christie fan, I was so happy to discover the Inspector Wexford mysteries, and have read most of these. But this is no Wexford mystery. I was so disturbed by the subject matter, that after I read it, I put it out of sight for a while, but it never went out of mind, so be prepared. This is Rendell, one of the best mystery writers out there today, at her best.

This was one of the first Rendell books that I read, and it absolutely knocked me out. I was recovering from a cold, lying in bed and enjoying it nicely, when it took a turn that made me sit up straight and go, "SAY WHAT? " I forgot the cold, forgot everything but following this hypnotic tale to its strange end. I've now read it three times, and each time it got more impressive. By present standards of sex and violence, it may seem understated. Somehow, in these days of excess, that just makes it more powerful. Rendell is the empress of the accidental, the queen of chaos theory. Something tiny happens, and something else tiny happens, and somehow, inevitably, chance becomes destiny or whatever passes for it. Oh, her books are lovely, dark, and deep. Open this one up, and you'll have miles to go before you sleep.

I have never read a boring book by Ruth Rendell. This one centers on a quiet and unnoticed psychopath. As she often does, Rendell places two stories side by side, and brings them together in a mind-blowing resolution. Here, the story of one man's romance with a woman married to a violent mate, and a psychopath brought to the edge by seemingly tiny cirucmstances. It may be a bit schematic - two men who coinicdentally have the same first initial and last name, a woman who leaves her violent husband just as the other story has reached a climactic crisis - but it is so much fun, so imaginative and not-quite-predictable, and such a fitting reader-revenge - that it is forgiveable.

It does seem: you can always count on Rendell.

A Demon in My View is 25 years old. It's a mark of Ms Rendell's talent that it can still easily hold its own against the current popular mystery writers. Ruth Rendell has a superb grasp of human nature - her characterizations are the best in the business. You'd recognise these people if you met them, though some of them you really wouldn't want to meet! Fat, avaricious landlord Stanley represents his type exactly and meek, righteous, houseproud Arthur, the book's main character, is one of the very creepiest people I've ever read about - repressed, obsessed and cunning. You can't help wondering how many men like him there are out there, 'men with his problem' - a problem that Arthur is proud that he can keep under control. He never lets himself go out after dark, to keep well away from temptation, and what he does in the basement instead is really sick. Far more intriguing than the usual whodunnit, this book is more of a 'will he do it?' After a new neighbour moves into his sheltered environment - handsome, confident, friendly and all the things Arthur recognizes he himself isn't - Arthur's basement refuge is no more, and his frustration, paranoia and weirdness increase. There's lots more plot and lots of interesting minor characters, and Ms Rendell makes it seem easy. It isn't - read and recognize a master author.

Imagine my delight as a hard-core Rendell fan when I discovered a book that I had never read! Lonely Arthur Johnson is about to lose control of his carefully built defenses against his tendency to violence. If the first two pages of this book don't grab you, nothing will. Demon in My View is another voyage into the unexpected from the Grand Master of psychological suspense. It is not the very best of Rendell, but just a notch below.

This book will not disappoint Ruth Rendell fans. The story is creepy, suspenseful, and ultimately satisfying. The main character is a disturbed Norman Bates type who is compelled to visit his basement every so often to fulfill a disturbing fantasy. What happens after circumstances beyond his control prevent him from carrying out his fantasies will keep you reading until the very last page. This is Ruth Rendell at her scary best.

Ruth Rendell is unquestionably the best novelist in this, or any generation. Her stories of psychological suspense and downright sheer chillingness will, and deserve to, go down in history as some of the most artful novels ever written. And this, is one of her very very best.

The atmosphere is chilly and hostile, the plot and characters are disturbing and strange. She mixes the normal everyday tpicalities of life with the quirks in the mind of the mentally...different, brilliantly, so that the consequences are amazingly cathartic.

Disturbing, compelling, utterly absorbing, with a shock ending that is a masterpiece of irony, this is an amazing novel.

This is one of the psychological thrillers that made Ruth Rendell the indisputable queen of the genre. Who else but this amazing author could have chosen a psychopatic serial killer as a protaginist of her novel and managed to make him the most sympathetic character of the book? Rendell puts her readers into the mind of her characters in a way that no other mystery writer can match.

This short novel is beautifully structured. Every scene, every word of it make sense and serve a purpose. The story seems deceptively simple but it draws you in in an inexorably seductive way. Every single character is so vividly described that you will remember this entire cast of characters for a long time after you finish reading this book.

I hope that more of Rendell's fantastic early classics come out in Kindle format.

This small book starts out slowly but soon picks up speed such that you can hardly wait to see what will happen. It has some dark but subtle comedic elements too--especially with the two characters named A. Johnson. It seems more thriller than mystery--certainly not a whodoneit. The psychological elements are very interesting if you are into psychology--especially the method of coping with the central pathology. It does have a number of problematic coincidences--especially two related ones at the very end. I could almost guess the final one. Still, it was a satisfying book, my first Rendell too. I shall read more.

In this thriller, Mrs Rendell portrays a 50 year old psychopath called Arthur Johnson. He fits exactly the definition of a psychopathic person. He is asocial, self centred, impulsive and suffers from an acute anxiety nurosis. He has a strong need to preserve an immaculate ego, he is paranoiac, fears retribution and has an urgent need to be thought well by all people. And men like him cannot be reassured because their belief in their own worthlessness is so intense. Self-confidence cannot be implanted in Arthur anymore at the age of 50. That's why he fears other people - they represent a menace to his own integrity - and so he lives in private isolation.

Characteristically for a psychotic mind, Arthur is unable to form emotional relationships and he has no social ways of coping with his frustrations. This is certainly why Arthur keeps a plastic shop window model in his cellar. This model is dressed in his Auntie Gracie's clothes - for him she is the image of a mother, wife, counsellor, housekeeper and sole friend - which Arthur delights in "strangulating" regularly at night.

A very good thriller which shows that Mrs Rendell understands how a psychopathic mind works and how it can go awry.