The Face of Trespass [Unabridged] [Audio Cassette]

Ruth Rendell (Author), Ric Jerrom (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2000

Two years ago he had been a promising young novelist. Now he survives in a near derelict cottage with only his own obsessive thoughts for company. He had loved a rich, unstable girl who wanted her husband dead. Even though the affair is over, the long slide into violence has just begun. Unabridged.

Editorial Reviews

From AudioFile

One problem with audiobooks is that you can't flip to the end of the book to find out what happens. Nor can you skip pages when the action rattles your nerves. Both these coping techniques would be tempting here as the dramatic narration of Ric Jerrom amplifies the nail-biting effect of Ruth Rendell's prose. Although there's no actual violence, the tension builds as an impoverished British writer becomes captivated--and manipulated--by a beautiful woman who wants him to kill her wealthy husband. It is her seductive voice, so superbly reproduced by the narrator, that casts an increasingly ominous spell. As the plot tightens, the voice gets lower and lower and more and more sinister until, at the end, it has become a sibilant whisper. Pity any timid souls who listen to that voice before bedtime! J.C. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Chivers Word for Word Audio Books; Unabridged edition (January 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0754075370
• ISBN-13: 978-0754075370
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 4.4 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,434,910 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #33 in Books > Books on Cassette > Authors, A-Z > ( R )
  • #92 in Books > Books on Cassette > Literature & Fiction > Religious

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars exquisite stuff from Rendell, August 22, 2003

By 

RachelWalker "RachelW" (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Face of Trespass,the (Mass Market Paperback)

Two years ago Gray Lanceton was a promising writer with one successful novel under his belt. But, then he met Drusilla, a bored, rich, unstable yet magnetic young woman, and his life was changed forever.

Now he lives in quiet exile in a small messy cottage, with only the surrounding trees and his own obsessive destroying thoughts for company. Their affair is now over, and he hopes that maybe now he can be free. But, unbeknownst to Gray, tragedy lurks still above him, the shadow of Drusilla and her violent desires will soon threaten to rob him of any of that freedom he thought he had clawed back...

This short book is a little piece of genius. It is a great great shame that many of these early novels of hers remain out of print, because they really are excellent. This one in particular is a wonderful yet chilling character study, which is what several of them tend to be, their lengths being what they are. While her later books are longer and can probe the psychological depths of many characters with greater ease, these early short gems tend to focus their intense insight on one major character, and she manages with effortless ease to present a completely whole, completely real, somewhat disturbing, portrait of a single fascinating character, in this case the reclusive, eerily human writer Graham Lanceton, who is actually quite likeable, which is rare for Rendell. It is a tale of desire, violence, freedom and of obsession, with each element explored wonderfully within a riveting plot.

She has a wonderfully polished writing style, and creates a tale that is both claustrophobic and atmospheric. All the aspects of the plot click together wonderfully. No event is superfluous, every occurrence has its purpose and its effect, which creates a wonderful whole and round effect to the book. Book with stories that weave and interlock so well are a joy, they are more fulfilling and the effect makes the writer seem darn clever, and this is a prime.

The Face of Trespass is dark, compelling, and psychologically brilliant. The final cataclysmic events are shocking and yet sensible. In fiction, this is becoming very rare.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Rendell Classic, September 4, 2010

By 

Olga Bezhanova (Edwardsville, IL) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Face Of Trespass (Kindle Edition)

Finally, this early Rendell masterpiece is available on Kindle! This short novel is classic Rendell: beautifully plotted, engrossing, written in Rendell's hallmark style that one can recognize among hundreds of authors. Rendell is adept at creating nueanced and complex characters her readers are not likely to forget for years to come.

In THE FACE OF TRESPASS, she takes us deep into the mind of a man obsessed with the loss of a woman he loves. Almost the entire first half of the book Graham stays in an abandoned hovel in a tiny village, speaking with no one and seeing no one. Still, every page of his story is fascinating. There is very little action here, and definitely no car chases, gory details of murders, dismembered victims, and order things today's authors love to pile up in order to attract their readers. Rendell's talent is such that she doesn't need these gimmicks to make her novels impossible to put down. She offers an unrivalled psychological insight into the personality of her main character. The seemingly benign setting of her novel conceals a dreadful sense of impending disaster.

In short, this is a great novel that can be read and re-read as many times as one wishes and still remain enjoyable.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A shamefully underexposed thriller, May 31, 2000

By 

RolloTomasi (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The face of trespass (Hardcover)

THE FACE OF TREPASS falls into that category of early Rendell classics that have since fallen out of print. A pity--this is one of Rendell's most enjoyable, involving, and finely tuned performances. An author, obsessed by his memories of a passionate but dangerous love affair, shuts himself up in a filthy hovel for months and months, willing himself to forget...it's a wonderful setup for Rendell's typically inventive plot twists, peppered with dead-on psychological insight.

Rendell's boundless strengths as a mystery writer and an anatomist of the human condition are fully in evidence here. She demonstrates once more her perfect mastery of tone and pace, as well as her gift for wicked wit--THE FACE OF TRESPASS is not just a superior thriller; it can also be an extremely funny book in certain places. And like all of the author's novels, there is a wonderfully effective buildup of psychological tension, a sense of inevitable tragedy that is brilliantly sustained--impressive, considering that THE FACE OF TRESPASS doesn't feature a single gunfight or car chase. Nothing here but delicious prose, shrewd social observation, marvelous character study, and a deft plot that serves up surprise after surprise. The story is marred only by a contrived conclusion that offers a false sense of security, usually absent in Rendell's bleak novels. Still, a wonderfully rich choice for fans of intelligent suspense fiction.