Customer Reviews

The Tree of Hands (Camden)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
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Like most of Ruth Rendell's novels, this is a highly readable and engrossing book. It starts out as a hearbreaking tale of a mother's love but soon takes an unexpected course that involves kidnapping and murder. The story revolves around three seemingly unrelated characters whose circumstances become intermingled, unbeknownst to them, and the pleasure of the book comes from the reader knowing what they don't know. It is highly entertaining and most recommended for readers who enjoy psychological suspense.

Eek! This novel is dark and intense--even by the standards of Ruth Rendell, the Queen of Darkness and Intensity. When a troubled young woman loses her child, her none-too-tightly-wrapped mother comes up with a horrible remedy (kidnapping) for her daughter's anguish. This shocking deed causes a large cross-section of dysfunctional Brits to intersect and interact all over London, with even more horrifying results. Imagine a novel by Charles Dickens--with a really high body count.

Nobody does this sort of thing better than Ruth Rendell. That's why we love her. And this novel is one of her best. Enjoy (if that's the right word).

Wow, what a book!I laughed, cried, got angry and was totally shocked at this book!The characters are so believable.Here you have this sweet, lonely woman who is trying to balance a writing carrer and raising a child on her own.Her mother: Bitter, confused and lonely herself believes that if you lose something....that's okay..."I'll get you another one."The story takes off like a roller coaster ride and ends leaving the reader totally shocked.This book would make a great motion picture!Gary

Benet Archdale's selfish mother Margaret ("Mopsa") was mad. She once tried to stab her 14 year old daughter with a carving knife as they travelled in a train together. Now, after many years Mopsa is supposedly recovered, living with her husband in Spain, while Benet, now a writer, remains alone in England with her young son James.

But now Mopsa has to return to England, to undergo some final assessments at the hospital where she was treated, and she is going to stay with her daughter, who constantly has to remind herself not to hate her mother who was, after all, mentally ill. This, then, is the set-up for Rendell's CWA Dagger-winning novel. And it is a set-up that leads to a violent chain of assault, deception, the kidnap of a child, and, finally, murder.

I normally end up saying mostly the same things about Rendell's brilliant books. Brilliant character, deadly psychology, complex, skilful plotting, fearful atmosphere, etc etc etc. This, I suppose, may give the impression that Rendell's books are all rather similar, but that is not so at all. They are all, every one of them, different and original and exquisite pieces of fiction. However, it is those factors (darkness, psychological brilliance, piercing character and social insight, seamless plotting) which unite her works undoubtedly. Each novel brings a different twist to the "formula" (I use quotation marks because there is actually no real formula for anything Rendell does), though, and each one sparkles.

The Tree of Hands is another excellent book from Rendell. It seems often that she can do no wrong, and I get sick of saying "another brilliant book by Rendell", but there is little else one CAN say when all an author's books are uniformly excellent. This book is unpredictable, shocking, horrifyingly compelling. The chain of events (Rendell has always been a first-class examiner of notions of cause-and-effect) unfolds with dreadful reality, horrific certainty and strength. It is rather saddening how Rendell shows us the numerous chances people may have to escape their fate, but don't take it. The course of destruction moves relentless on in Rendell's work. It is not cheerful fiction, not for those who like an up-lifting story. Instead, it is a dark work of dreadful consequence of the most innocent of actions, where normal people's lives become at risk through the influence of those who exist on some kind of edge of normalcy. The Tree of Hands is a brilliant, intelligent, shocking, haunting and eerie work that deserves fully its accolades.

Probably my favorite Ruth Rendell novel (and I've read and enjoyed them all. Except for "Road Rage", which I found tedious. But that is definitely the exception to the rule!) Benet, a successful novelist and single mother, is enduring a visit from her mentally ill mother, Mopsa, when her little son takes ill and dies. Her mother, Mopsa, decides to go out and find another little boy for Benet to raise, and kidnaps a child. Benet at first is deceived by her mother into thinking that the child is the son of a friend of theirs, and that they are babysitting for a few days; eventually, Mopsa admits what she has done, but adds that the little boy had been neglected and was sitting alone on a curb, menaced by a dog, when she took him. Benet, watching news reports, learns that the child comes from an impoverished, neglectful background and, when bathing him, finds his body has been burned by cigarettes. Initially resentful and repulsed by the little boy (she originally describes him as "the ugliest child she had ever seen"), Benet finds herself beginning to love him. I don't want to reveal anymore! There are many, many twists and turns in this tale. Any reader with Ruth Rendell's work (or that of her pseudonym, Barbara Vine) knows that plausibility isn't her strongest suit--but surprises are. Her characters (in all of her novels) are some of the best-written and most believable in the mystery genre. Read this book! You won't be able to put it down.

This book started out a bit of a "duty" read. After all, how could I call myself a dedicated mystery reader having read only one Vine/Rendell. This book won a Dagger which seemed reason enough to chose it over others by Rendell. My recollection of my earlier read (as well as the reviews of her books in general) was that her stories tend to be a bit on the bleak side. In many ways, "The Tree of Hands" is a dark and sad story.

Still, the bleakness of the story is a small price for the chance to read this intriguing tale of three lives that are at once spiraling out of control and towards each other. Most interesting is the story of Benet. When Benet's toddler son dies of illness, Benet's mentally ill mother brings home another boy of the same age. Benet is aghast but doesn't want her mother (or herself) to be arrested for kidnapping. Then she discovers the child has been abused. At the same time, the boyfriend of the biological mother is falsely accused of the boy's murder and we watch his world unravel. A third plot is added latter which is more tangentially related.

Rendell spins this tale in a way that captured even me, a reluctant reader. In one sense it was a depressing read but at the same time I was captivated and eager to read another chapter. "The Tree of Hands" is hardly a conventional murder mystery but it is an excellant example of pyschological suspense.

Those who love Ruth Rendell can enter her world again. Enter via
Benet's world, a world about to be shattered. Benet is an author and single mother who has created a life for herself and her 18-month old son. She has managed to come to terms with her past i.e.growing up with a self-centered, mentally unstable mother and ending an unsuitable relationship with the father of her child.

Her child, James, is pivotal to her existence. She encounters Rendellesque situations i.e. being emotionally torn between her mother and child, having the one ripped away and the other intensifying the pain yet ironically leading her to her salvation, having to choose between her newly-found soulmate and the child, being torn between what is legally and morally right as opposed to what is emotionally right.

Perhaps the ending could have been better but then book endings are often not as good as the rest of the book deserves. Perhaps it is merely the fact that a good book has ended that makes one feel a little "empty" at the end.

Read it!

Rendell's middle period books are some of her finest. None of her books should EVER go out of print. Reading her is being drawn into a world you can see feel and touch and what's best she lets you see the inside of peoples' minds and souls. In this book, she describes Mopsa, the severly mentally ill mother of Benet, as well as any psychologist could, better even,in her portrayal of the thousand and one little quirks that make Mopsa a Monster. (which she is). The plot is gripping, but most important Rendell knows her characters inside out so you can truly understand why people do the terrible cruel stupid things they do, most importantly when they are doing them out of love or fear or greed. You wil not be sorry you read this book, if you like psychological suspense.

Let me begin by confessing that I've not read the book! But I was reading the other reviews and noted one from G. Underdown back in February, 2004 that suggests the book would make a good movie. I wish I could reach him directly, but perhaps everyone would like to know that it has indeed been made into a movie in 2001, Alias Betty. The director is Claude Miller whose most recent film was last year's marvelous A Secret.

Ruth Rendell at her best with one of her typical casts of dysfunctional adults and the intertwinng of disparate lives. At the heart of this tale is the the problem of making right choices involving an abused child.