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26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best crime writer anywhere in the world today - still!, February 22, 2004
Ruth Rendell here again visits London, the place she is so able to render darkly atmospheric and menacing. There is a serial killer on the loose, and he has been dubbed "The Rottweiler" by the media, due to a bite mark found on the first victims neck, even though that bite mark was later traced back to her boyfriend. His only signature is that he takes one of each victims' personal items - perhaps a watch, or necklace - after having garrotted them. The latest victim is found near Inez Ferry's antique shop, and because of this the lives of a small group of disparate people will become drawn into this case and it's increasingly introverted investigation. For the police are becoming more and more convinced that someone connected to the shop - anyone from the exotic assistant Zeinab, who is stringing along a variety of rich men, to one of the tenants in the flats above - could very well be a homicidal maniac... This is everything that I expect a Ruth Rendell novel to be. It is, of course, impeccably written and psychologically excellent, so I need say no more about that. Indeed, The Rottweiler is another of Rendell's books that is entirely unique, in that for almost the first time ever she displays a delicious dark humour, veins of which run through the plot like black treacle. At times, this seems like a social satire, as she directs her gaze onto everything from the media to the often bizarre relationships between men and women. Her characters are also particularly noteworthy, especially the compelling Inez and Will, who is possibly the most moving character she has ever depicted, who takes a perverse, almost unregistered, pleasure from pushing away all prospective suitors for his beloved Aunt Rebecca, who desperately doesn't want to spend the rest of her life caring for her "simple" nephew, though is racked with guilt because of that. You would easily be forgiven for thinking that this is a serial killer novel, but this is really no more a serial killer novel than the Bible is a book solely about God. It is so much more than that. It's a book about the people involved, how they can be draw into darkness and uncertainty through the effects of the gravity of crime. It's a book about how peoples live always changed when confronted with the horrific. At times, the serial killings themselves seem very on the periphery (I was going to say "incidental" that that would be entirely the wrong word) and it is eerie to read about them in such a detached way. It's also interesting how we, essentially, only know as much about the murders as the characters themselves do through their exposure to the media. To be honest, it's almost impossible to review a Ruth Rendell book and truly convince of her genius and say what you really want to without illustrating it by disclosing important aspects of the plot or simply re-telling little aspects of the story, which makes the task I have very hard. But, rest assured, this book of a contemporary and chilling London and a small group of people within it is brilliant. It's a novel that questions, among many things, the nature of morality, how we perceive others and ourselves, it examines ideas of the human need for companionship, and the different forms of love between men and women, and it tackles, as many of her books do on some level, the problem of "How eccentric or odd do you have to be before you become a danger to others, or even yourself?" And yet, it is really about none of those things. Those are just tiny stitches in her tapestry, small but illuminating strokes on her canvas. It's about people, and the spider-web of life that connects everything to everything else. And I consider it to be brilliance in its purest form. The only way to understand this is to read one of her works, because there is no one else today writing books quite like this. She's our modern Scheherazade. I just want her to keep telling stories all night long.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"He agreed to everything she asked because he had no choice", February 23, 2005
This review is from: The Rottweiler: A Novel (Hardcover)
Ruth Rendell writes much more compelling novels when she's either writing as Barbara Vine or churning out the Inspector Wexford series. When she focuses on a psychologically complex group of interrelated characters, and tries to weave a murder mystery around them, she often loses focus and her narrative tends to meander and ramble. Unfortunately, her latest, The Rottweiler is one of those novels; part psychological character study, and part murder mystery, this uneven story of blackmail plods along, and while it is a moderately entertaining read and has some wonderfully multi-faceted characters, it's also rather dull and a trifle over-long. Someone has strangled five young women, and hidden their bodies. The press has dubbed him the Rottweiler. He also steals a small item such as jewelry or a cigarette lighter from each victim. The murders have been happening around Edgeware Road, in the vicinity of Star Antiques, a shop owned by Inez Ferry. The shop, while situated in the fashionable area of Lisson Grove, London, has not been doing well. So in order to supplement her income, Inez rents out three apartments in the building. Inez's tenants are diverse and strange: Will Cobbett is a beautiful looking but mentally challenged young man who works for a builder. He lives in a child-like world of television cartoons and make-believe, and fantasizes about living happily ever after with Becky, his aunt, who - frustrated at having to look after him - has turned to drink. Ludmila Gogol a Russian immigrant and Freddy Perfect, her boyfriend live next to Freddy and the enigmatic Jeremy Quick lives upstairs from them. Jeremy is a suspicious character, who pays his rent on time, but Inez discovers that he's a chronic liar and she gradually begins suspect his secret past. The police begin to suspect the Inez might be harboring a murderer but she has no idea which of her tenants is guilty. Inez is too pre-occupied with watching videos of her dead actor husband and wallowing in the dreams of a past and a perfect love that has gone forever. Many of the other tenants have their own agendas - Jeremy is obsessed with satisfying his mother, and fixates about a sexual experience he had when he was thirteen years old. Becky - perhaps the most interesting character - is feeling suffocated by Will. She has given up her life to him, her future, her very self. Drinking has become an essential part of Becky's lifestyle, "it's become the worst kind of behaviour - the secret, covert, and conspirational sort." Like many of Ruth Rendell's books, The Rottweiler contains a number of inter-connected subplots. In this case, pieces of jewelry belonging to the murdered girls, inexplicably turn up in Inez' shop, and it is steadily revealed that all the characters are in someway linked to the charms. Obviously the mystery of who murdered the girls is the central ingredient of The Rottweiler - a mystery that is revealed pretty early on - but the main crux of the narrative is the gradual revelation of each of the personalities of the main characters. Perhaps this is where The Rottweiler falls short - too much time is spent on describing the characters' inner lives, when, if the focus had remained totally on the murders, a more engaging and fast-paced story would have eventuated. Mike Leonard February 05.
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23 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absorbing and brilliant, December 6, 2004
This review is from: The Rottweiler: A Novel (Hardcover)
A killer is on the loose, strangling young women before leaving with one of their personal items. In the midst of the investigation, we get a glimpse of life within an antique shop/apartment house owned by Inez Ferry. Her tenants include an eclectic assortment of characters and of course one of them is the killer. In typical Rendell fashion, the killer is revealed by page 100 but the how and why is not and as the killer himself seeks an answer as to why he is doing these deeds, so is the reader and it keeps us turning the pages. Ruth Rendell never ceases to amaze and I truly wonder how she comes up with these intriguing plots and interesting characters. It is common for such an assortment of characters to come together in some fashion or be connected some way but I was surprised to see that they really do not in this novel. Still, Rendell's prose is highly engrossing and she is a master at depicting the dark side of the human psyche. These characters are among her most vivid and include one of the most sympathetic she has ever created, a young good looking mentally deficient man who becomes a suspect. The incident that leads up to him being suspected is rather heartbreaking. As always, one the elements that make Rendell's book so much fun is her dark humor when writing about a character or reading their thoughts. Case in point is Zeinab, a beautiful Asian women who works for Inez in the antique shop and uses her beauty to snag rich men in order to pay for her families luxuries. I only had one minor quip with the story and it concerns the theft of a strongbox and the thief eventually unlocking the combination by a simple guess. Highly unbelievable and unlikely but that is the only flaw in this exceptionally intriguing novel.
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