Customer Reviews

Duplicate Keys

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I came across this book on Amazon.com when I was browsing through the list of Jane Smiley titles. A *mystery* by Jane Smiley? I'm a big mystery buff, so I had to read it.

And you know what? I really enjoyed it, both from a suspense standpoint and a literary standpoint. I guessed the identity of the murderer even before the protagonist, but there was still a great deal of suspense as to how the situation would play out which kept me reading all day until the final page.

While most standard murder mysteries switch between several viewpoints, Smiley shows the whole story through the eyes of Alice Ellis, so that the reader is as much in the dark as she is; I think this helped tremendously with the suspense. The novel also examines how the murder affected the friends of the victims, both their self-perception and their relationships with each other. Most characters were well-drawn and fleshed-out and the changing dynamic of their relationships made the book as compelling a novel as it was a mystery.

Jane Smiley writes about families and relationships, not murder mysteries, so it's a feather in her cap for versatility that she acquits herself more than decently on this atypical novel of hers. The murders have already taken place before we begin, so the rest of the novel has us backtracking through a minefield of relationships that once bound the friends together. Quite clearly, the network has collapsed beneath the growing rot that nobody seemed to care to notice until the inevitable happened. The friendship, if you could call it that, was undermined by a combination of sexual betrayal, professional jealousies and other dependencies and left to find its own bloody equilibrium. The narrator Alice Ellis' voice isn't an unequivocal one. It's hard to nail her personality down or even decide whether she's likeable or not. She's bitter, insecure, vulnerable, defiant and bitchy all at the same time. But then again, we are reminded that Smiley is always more interested in the people than the plot and so it shouldn't be too surprising that we get an edgy character for a heroine and some excellent characterisation to boot.

Some readers have complained about the identity of the murderer being predictable. I don't. If there's an awkward and unsatisfactory element in the story, it's in the romantic subplot. Henry may be the secret lover who lives across the street but he doesn't belong. He should have been saved for Smiley's next book about Alice. Smiley may have set out to write a different novel but she couldn't help but leave large traces of her familiar genre behind. Still, "Duplicate Keys" is a hugely enjoyable novel. Recommended.

In the context of those books of hers that i have read, this is the worst. However, in the context of mystery novels, this is pretty decent. The book is an easy read, ideal for a plane ride or a leisurely weekend. Alice, as a main character, is pretty pathetic. The short snippets of conversation between her and her ex husband made me cringe. I had far more respect for the killer, a sturdier person all in all. I agree with some readers in that it is fairly easy to figure out who did it. Anyhow, a Pulizter Prize winning author doesn't have to write Pulizter Prize material all the time!

An oddly powerful book, and one where its power sort of slowly creeps up on you, tugs at you when you least expect it.

Smiley is torn between two things, I think: she wants to write a literary novel, but for one reason or another (she wants to be published, I'd wager) she is MARRIED to the conventions of the mystery. She is GLUED to them-- most mystery writers aren't as conventional as this. And yet, the mix is actually quite interesting. On the one hand, some of Smiley's handling of the mystery elements are so exasperating that you wonder why she bothered at all: the insultingly stereotypical detective character, the AWFUL romantic subplot, not mention her troubling presentation of gay characters. But on the other hand, the genre holds Smiley in place-- IMO, she's often given to navel gazing, but the gauntlet of the mystery plot keep her from becoming too distracted. In some places the combination is perfect, in others distracting, and in others, downright irrating. (If I had a nickel for everytime in the novel the main character does something and then explains in interior dialogue that she isn't sure why, I could have bought the book in hardback.)

But I call this a four star novel, just because there's something here-- I don't want to say what exactly for fear of spoiling the book-- but eventually Duplicate Keys works up a strange kind of power. This is an angry, desperate book. Alarmingly so. And that raw, brutal sort of emotion allows you to forgive a lot of what came before.

Read it and see.

Alice, an orderly librarian, is drawn into a murder mystery when her friend, a temperamental musician named Craig shot dead in his apartment. Their group of friends, who came to New York City together to make a life for themselves and for two, hit it big in the music business are in turns suspicious and supportive of their companions. A detective begins to examine the case, probing further and further into their lives, and it begins to seem to Alice that one of her friends may be the murderer. Smiley excels at describing intimate details of every day life and has an ear for dialogue. The result is a book more leisurely than your average murder mystery, but still worth reading. Indeed the murder seemed to be more tacked on to the story, then having been the hub around which it revolved.

I believe this is Smiley's first attempt at mystery/suspense.

It's not bad, although after the initial discovery of two bodies by the librarian protagonist the plot seems to grind to a halt for a while and we get (for me) too many details of shopping trips, food preparation and meals eaten at the expense of the story. There is however some smart dialogue and a good feel for the New York location. We rather clumsily learn the identity of the murderer quite early in the book but the action does pick up after that point and there are some genuine moments of suspense.

Perhaps Ms. Smiley's best work. A novel about the secrets that lie between even the closest of friends. The unspoken and presumed to be well known "facts" keep the characters from knowing as much about one another as they think they do.

The characters are well portrayed with different motives and desires. This book isn't always about who did the crime so much as why.

In the end this novel becomes a bittersweet indictment of near fame and the havoc it reeks.

Although Duplicate Keys is not a bad novel, it does not compare to Jane Smiley's previous work. The novel essentially details the way two murders affect the relationships among a circle of friends. Although Smiley's prose is a step up from other murder mysteries, the plotting does not compel the reader to continue. The reader is frequently made privy to the main character's innermost thoughts and insecurities which unfortunately just causes the plot to come to a halt. In terms of characters, Smiley draws a strong and interesting portrait of the friendship between the two main characters, but the lives of the remaining circle of friends and the book's main romantic angle are not as well defined. Overall, not a bad book if you're looking for a murder mystery, but if you haven't read any other books by Jane Smiley, I'd suggest starting with a stronger novel such as Moo

I like Jane Smily. I like her a lot. That is why I was so surprised not to like Duplicate Keys. The book had my interest at the beginning and developed the lead character Alice Ellis quite well. The idea of a close knit group of friends falling apart and away from each other as some of them grew up was fascinating, particulary as two of them have been shot dead at the beginning of the book. The mystery element is early on through out, though, as it becomes obvious who it is and the book descends to a sort of psychobabble for the resoltion that is beneath the subtle display of human motives that the author manipulated beautifully in A Thousand Acres. This book is an early one for author as she develops her wonderful style and it feels incomplete. But if this is the phase she had to move through to provide the wonderful later, then it was worth it.

Murders in a New York apartment brought focus to interfused friendship among 6 friends. All chief characters have flaws and particularities. While plot developed convincing enough, the murderer's motive is not.