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Grasshopper (Paperback)

~ Barbara Vine (Author)
Key Phrases: black leather backpack, Barbara Vine, Russia Road, Torrington Gardens (more...)
3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A new novel from Barbara Vine (or Ruth Rendell, her alter ego) is always cause for celebration, and in this exceptional psychological thriller, she displays all her mastery of craft to draw the reader into an unfamiliar world. She paints a vivid picture of the roots of obsession in the history of a young woman whose love of high places has been marked by tragedy, guilt, and exile from her family's home.

Clodagh Brown has always been frightened by enclosed spaces and loved climbing, a phobia and passion that resulted in the death of her high school sweetheart. As a college student living in the basement of a distant relative's home in Maida Vale, a slightly shabby London neighborhood, she encounters a group of peers who share both of these psychological quirks and introduce her to the steep rooftops of her new surroundings. Clodagh soon falls in love with Silver, a young man whose top-floor apartment across from her flat houses a diverse and fascinating group of people. Their youthful idealism and moral certainties are often at odds with conventional values and legal niceties. While Clodagh and Silver carry the story, their peers present ample opportunities for Vine to showcase her talent for imagining a multiplicity of lives and personas--from Liv, the Swedish au pair who can clamber over rooftops like a mountain goat but is terrified of what awaits her on level ground, to Jonny, whose pathological need to dominate the others, particularly Liv, leads to the shocking and tragic denouement. When the climbers chance upon a top-floor flat where a couple and their adopted mixed-race son are hiding from the authorities (who would remove the child from their care), Vine's ability to alter pace without sacrificing story or character really stands out. Grasshopper is an acutely drawn, immensely satisfying book. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Writing under her Vine pseudonym, Ruth Rendell offers another of her intriguing, multifaceted psychological suspense novels (The Chimney Sweeper's Boy and The Brimstone Wedding, etc.). The narrator here is Clodagh Brown, who, as a child growing up in Suffolk, loved climbing trees, then steeples and eventually pylons whose steel arms carried electricity across nearby fields. Resembling giant grasshoppers from a distance, close-up they embodied high-voltage, lethal danger; indeed, a teenage Clodagh survives a tragic accident involving a pylon and her first love, Daniel, before she leaves home at 19 for college in London. She finds classes boring, whereas walks through Victorian neighborhoods, with five-story row houses, decorative cornices and quaint chimneys, enchant her. Clodagh almost forgets the claustrophobic terrors she's suffered since childhood until she collapses in a pedestrian underpass and is rescued by an archetypal savior named Silver. On the top floor of his mostly absent parents' home, Silver provides a haven for a disparate group: exotic Wim, mentor to would-be roof climbers; Liv, who, after an accident, can't face descending to street level; and amoral Jonny, who interests Silver because he is "a real life burglar." Silver has a small trust fund, so he's free to cultivate "the habit of happiness." He and Clodagh fall in love, and both become intrepid midnight roof climbers. As youthful idealists, they determine to help a couple harassed by tabloids accusing them of kidnapping a child. Their ill-fated attempt leads to a terrifying climax. Although readers know that Clodagh, a beguiling heroine, has survived to become a successful electrical engineer, and is newly married, the story of her youthful adventures is enthralling, and the conundrums she faces in her life because of her love of heights make for an ingenious story told by a master of suspense.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage (June 11, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0375726500
  • ISBN-13: 978-0375726507
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #580,852 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

More About the Author

Ruth Rendell
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Customer Reviews

42 Reviews
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 (8)
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 (10)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
 (14)
1 star:
 (4)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.1 out of 5 stars (42 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Luminous Barbara Vine, October 9, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Grasshopper (Hardcover)
Absolutely gorgeous. I still like A Fatal Inversion and perhaps No Night is Too Long better, but this one is magnificent. As usual in a BV novel, the psychology is subtle and complex. Vine does not clobber you over the head with it, but advances it through motifs and imagery. Yes, there are implausible happenings and a really wild coincidence or two, but the narrative sustains itself so well from one page to the next that one can easily accept the ending.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars a book worth reading, November 8, 2000
This review is from: Grasshopper (Hardcover)
Though Grasshopper was worth the reading, I think that fans of Vine/Rendell know there are better novels by her out there. If you're not familiar with this author and haven't read King Solomon's Carpet, if you enjoyed this book, I'd highly recommend that one. It seems to succeed where this one falls a little flat. Grasshopper didn't make my favorite Barbara Vine book list...but it came close. Still, the characters in Grasshopper were thought-provoking and this alone made it all worthwhile. Nobody can create characters and set a mood like Barbara Vine.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable, but not her best, March 7, 2001
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Grasshopper (Hardcover)
"Grasshopper" may not be one of Barbara Vine's best novels (and I have read all of them), but I just got over the flu, and spent the last two days riveted to this book. I kept intending to go back to bed and sleep, but couldn't put this down. So much for it being boring.

Still, I could say the same about virtually any of Rendell/Vine's work. "Grasshopper" features rich characterizations and a fine narrative that carries the story rattling forward. Where it falls short of her earlier achievements is in the plot, which is contrived in places. Elements from previous works ("A Fatal Inversion," "King Solomon's Carpet", and "The Tree of Hands") are recycled here, less effectively than in the earlier works. Rendell always drops subtle hints about what is to come and makes extensive use of foreshadowing, but here the payoff is less than what her readers have come to expect. Usually she succeeds in delivering at least one jaw-dropping surprise per book, and puts in a vicious twist of the knife at the end. Unfortunately, she does not do that in "Grasshopper."

In spite of these shortcomings, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The central character in particular is believable and appealing, and as always the narrative is peppered with Rendell's keen observations of human behavior. I would recommend this book for those familiar with her work; however for those who are not, "A Fatal Inversion" or "A Dark-Adapted Eye" are better places to start. (For a very fast read, try "The Tree of Hands", or "Going Wrong.")

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing but not compelling
Of the dozen or so Barbara Vine novels, for me this falls right in the lower middle tier. Hardly the best, but certainly not the weakest (I would reserve "The Minotaur" for that,... Read more
Published 17 months ago by P. Ho

4.0 out of 5 stars Grasshopper
Grasshopper

I am a dedicated Rendell fan but also enjoy all genres of writing. This is atypical for Rendell but I found it more literary and for me just as enjoyable... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Laura Burgess

3.0 out of 5 stars The Road to Hell
If you have never read a Ruth Rendell or Barbara Vine novel, stop! Put Grasshopper down and move slowly away. Read more
Published on August 23, 2007 by takingadayoff

4.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected
I hadn't read any reviews of this book when I started it. I assumed it would be a typical Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell mystery - people get killed, the rest of the book is spent... Read more
Published on August 18, 2006 by madcarrot

5.0 out of 5 stars Nobody Does it Better
Tightly woven plot, complex characterizations and an amazingly talented reader (audio version). What more could you want? Read more
Published on January 26, 2006 by Lulu

2.0 out of 5 stars Poorly written, dull
I'm reading this book only because it's hard to come by English language books in Italy and it cost very little. Read more
Published on December 16, 2005 by Ms. D

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and brilliant, not your typical mystery.
I couldn't put this book down. I think that the reviewers who didn't like it were reacting to its not being a typical "mystery" but more of a psychological suspense novel. Read more
Published on November 10, 2005 by a.

1.0 out of 5 stars Unrealistic and totally boring
What happened to Barbara Vine? None of the characters in Grasshopper ring true and the climbing episodes are so repetitive that you feel like throwing this book thru your window,... Read more
Published on September 11, 2005 by lamaranthe

4.0 out of 5 stars Quite a Different Barbara Vine.
I'm not quite sure what to say about this one. I found that contrary to most of her books, this one is a lot slower paced. That does detract a bit from the story, but Ms. Read more
Published on March 2, 2005 by S. Schwartz

4.0 out of 5 stars More Novel Than Mystery
This novel really transcends the mystery genre. Being my first B. Vine read, and also not knowing that she was Ruth Rendell, I was very pleasantly surprised to find that this... Read more
Published on August 31, 2004 by M. G Jackson

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