THE KEYS TO THE STREET - Book review

 

Ruth Rendell’s The Keys to the Street (1996) is yet another of her intriguing psychological suspense novels. This time she delves into the world of the street people, the dispossessed, the homeless.

The first lines of the book dwell on the iron spikes that surmount the gates of the London Park near the zoo. These – or similar – spikes are relevant later, when some murders occur: a couple of dossers are found impaled on them.

But this isn’t a detective story. The main character is Mary Jago, who works at the Irene Adler museum, which panders to fans of Sherlock Holmes. She has been cohabiting with Alistair, though now she fears him, as he has become controlling and prone to bouts of ill temper. Mary recently offered herself as a bone marrow donor and actually underwent the procedure, effectively saving a man’s life. Alistair is forcefully uncomfortable about this: ‘You need some sense shaking into you’ and shook her with a kind of frenzy (p52). So she plucks up the courage and decides to move out, and has found a temporary job of house-sitting for several months. There is also a dog left with the house – Gushi.

Mr Bean (no, not that one; see below) is a seventy-year-old dog walker and takes up to six at a time, twice daily, including Gushi. Previously, he’d been in the employ of a certain Maurice Clitheroe who was a deranged masochist. Since then, Bean is always on the lookout for scandal that might provide him with blackmail money, and has his sights on one dog-owning client, Mr Barker-Pryce, MP.

Mary and Leo Nash, the bone marrow recipient, meet and are attracted.

From time to time Mary sees a number of homeless in the park area. One of them is Roman Ashton – he’s reading Gogol’s Dead Souls when she first observes him. Roman suffered a tragic loss and sold up his house and lost himself in the streets. Despite not appearing or sounding like the usual street person, he gradually learns the ways of dossers, noting for example that ‘only another dosser sits on the seat where a dosser already is’ (p89).

Harvey Owen Bennett – known as Hob – is a damaged junkie who is willing to do anything to get a fix to relieve his ‘state’.

Another dosser is Pharaoh – real name Jimmy Clancy – whose coat is decorated with countless keys. Apparently he’s seeking ‘the keys of the Kingdom’ (p149). Mr Bean possesses a key to a private residents’ park.

The inner lives and varied past of these characters are examined by Rendell as we move through the novel, and there will be interconnections. Rendell appears knowledgeable about London’s labyrinthine streets, the habits of junkies, dog-walkers and the homeless. In addition, Rendell’s gift for description never fails to put the reader in the scene: ‘In the dark canal a full moon was reflected like a round white light under the water. Trees trailed thin branches across its surface as if to catch the moon in their net’ (p149).

Even when the twist occurs, there is no let-up for the reader. The pages have to be turned to find out what happens next.

An excellent read.

Editorial comment:

The choice of the name ‘Mr Bean’. I can’t understand why Rendell would opt for this since Rowan Atkinson had made his comical Mr Bean famous in 1990 and thereafter.

The Crocodile Bird - Book review

Five years before Ruth Rendell’s tour-de-force A Sight for Sore Eyes (reviewed here on 29 March), she tackled a similar theme in The Crocodile Bird: here, young Liza is being protected from the modern world, being home-schooled and not seeing any television; in Eyes, it was Francine who was overly protected because of a traumatic event in her early childhood, when she witnessed her mother’s murder. In both cases, Rendell examines how the isolation of the young women affects them, yet that’s where the similarity ends. Both works are highly original and powerfully related.

 

Liza’s mother Eve tells her she must leave their remote country gatehouse, because the police will be coming next day to arrest Eve. For Eve’s protection, Liza must not be found here. It’s a worrying situation, for in all of her seventeen years of life Liza has never been on a bus or a train, had never played with another child her own age, and had never left the extensive grounds of the Shrove mansion; the mansion’s gatehouse was their home. Liza had almost no knowledge of the outside world.

There is one glimmer of light for Liza. She is not entirely alone. Without her mother’s knowledge, she had begun a love affair with Sean, a young man who worked on the Shrove estate.

So begins three months of life with Sean in his caravan, while she learns about the real world. And as they cohabit she pieces together segments of the past involving her mother, her mother’s lovers and the violent death she had witnessed. And finally she learns why her mother wanted to protect her from the outside world…

As ever, Rendell imbues the story with extensive detail to create a sense of realism. The unravelling of the past is cleverly done, subtly building a sense of dread as the ending approaches.

And what of the intriguing title?  During one of her lessons Liza’s mother refers to a Trochilus, a kind of humming bird. Its ‘other name was the Crocodile Bird, so-called because it is the only creature that can enter with impunity the mouth of a crocodile and pick its teeth. It also cries out to warn the crocodile of an impending foe.’ (p190).  And while Eve might have killed a man or three, Liza realised she was never at risk: ‘I was like the bird that lived inside the crocodile’s mouth, I was safe whoever else wasn’t.’ (p243).

Recommended.

A Sight for Sore Eyes - Book review

Ruth Rendell’s 1998 book A Sight for Sore Eyes is an exquisitely plotted crime novel. At just over 400 pages, it is longer than many of her books, but it’s still a fast read, because the reader is impelled to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next.

Like many of her novels, the troubles her protagonists face are brought home to them by events in the past, and this one is no exception.

The Grex brothers – Keith and Jimmy – lived in the family home; then Jimmy married Eileen. They were not imaginative individuals, and there’s plenty of dark humour describing their relationship: ‘in order to be productive ejaculation had to be frequent, lavish and cumulative… a lot of that stuff had to get inside you before anything resulted… like the Grecian 2000 lotion Keith put on his greying hair, which only took effect after repeated applications.’ (p9) The result was an unexpected baby boy, Teddy.

Teddy grew into a handsome youth, but lacked any parental affection and was left to his own devices so that emotionally he was sadly deficient of empathy.

Yet Teddy has one abiding interest: he likes beautiful things, which is fostered by the neighbour, Mr Chance, who is a craftsman in wood and is fond of the phrase ‘A sight for sore eyes.’ (p17, p240)

Rendell’s descriptions are poignant, astute and sometimes amusing. ‘There was something about Keith that suggested a half-melted candle. Or a waxwork left out in the sun. The flesh of his face hung in wattles and dewlaps. It seemed to have waddled down his neck and sagged from his shoulders and chest to settle in stacked masses on his stomach.’ (p21)

The living conditions in the Grex household were decidedly deplorable in Teddy’s eyes, and he was ashamed. ‘Woodworm were devouring the living-room furniture and from the television table had bored into the skirting board… Spiders were in the bath and silverfish wriggled across the floors.’ (p57) ‘The tracks made by moth grubs already showed on the lumpy woollen surfaces and moth cocoons, greyish-white like mildew, nestled between the stitches.’ (p58)  ‘The fly-spotted mirror was losing its silvering in a kind of greenish ulceration round the edges…’ (p59)

Little girl Francine Hill was in her bedroom when her mother was murdered downstairs. She hid in case the murderer was after her as well. And when her father found her she was so traumatised she had lost her power of speech. She became a patient of Julia, a psychologist who eventually married Francine’s father. Francine was finally restored and she grew up cossetted by Julia, as if wrapped in cotton wool, fearful lest the murderer came back…

Francine becomes a beautiful young woman, someone who could easily be idolised by the likes of Teddy.

Inevitably, these characters will interact, their lives dovetailing, and slowly but surely there will be a fateful reckoning.

Rendell’s psychological insights, the depiction of a character’s gradual slide into insanity, her masterful plotting and the grim denouement make this novel a totally satisfying experience.

MAKE DEATH LOVE ME - Book review

MAKE DEATH LOVE ME

Ruth Rendell

 

Published in 1979, this is a typical Ruth Rendell crime novel, concentrating on characters who possess a dubious moral compass.

Alan Groombridge was in a boring job, acting as a small bank’s branch manager, living out a tedious existence with Alison, a wife he didn’t like, and two ungrateful children. So he fantasised about stealing from his bank and living in freedom, even going so far as to take out £3,000 from the safe and sequester (briefly) in his desk. Then, one day, while he is indulging his fantasy, the bank is robbed, and Alan’s assistant Joyce is kidnapped by the robbers. Alan had managed to hide and decides to disappear as well, taking the money from the drawer…

As ever, the plot is cleverly constructed and the gradual disintegration of the robbers, Nigel and Marty, is fascinating.

FFB - Blood Lines

Originally published in 1995, Blood Lines by Ruth Rendell is sub-titled ‘Long and Short Stories’. It contains eleven stories, the title tale being a novella concerning her famous sleuth Inspector Wexford.

 

There is no previous publishing history for any of the tales, so presumably the stories were new for this collection.

‘Blood Lines’ is about a bloody murder of ‘an ideal husband’ with its fair share of suspects. The pleasure is in Rendell’s description, and her handling of Wexford: ‘A sheet of the corrugated iron that roofed it had come loose and clanged up and down rhythmically in the increasing wind. It was a dreary place. No visitor would have difficulty in believing a man had been clubbed to death there. Wexford remembered, with distaste, the little crowd which had gathered outside this gate during the previous week… hoping for happenings.’(p4)

We can forgive the switch of viewpoint to Burden at times, perhaps because we know these characters so well, they’re in our head. It’s more ‘tell’ than ‘show’ but that’s typical of this kind of crime story. An interesting tale in 39 pages.

Much shorter and quite slight are ‘Lizzie’s Lover’ – a dark underdeveloped psychological piece, ‘Shreds and Slivers’ – insanity with a play on words, and ‘The Carer’ – a nosy-parker who got more than she bargained expected.

‘Unacceptable Levels’ – is too short, mostly dialogue, a gem of an idea for murder involving nicotine.

‘In All Honesty’ is a clever treatment showing how even honest people can be destroyed by unfounded suspicion.

‘Burning End’ lays bare the put-upon daughter-in-law who looks after her husband’s mother while he and his brother don’t lift a finger. Tragic, but believable, with an ironic twist.

‘The Man Who Was the God of Love’ concerns Henry, who pretends to be something he is not; if he is found out, then the consequences could be dire. Another similar character is George in ‘Expectations’ who married for money, not love.

‘Clothes’ is about an obsession. Alison was driven to buy clothes. The rush of adrenalin only lasted as long as the actual purchase. Afterwards, she hated herself for giving in to the temptation. [You know, a similar urge regarding the purchase of books? Are they bought to read or just to possess, to fill up shelves? The former, I’m sure.] Sadly, for Alison, she rarely wore her new clothes. Rendell really gets under the skin of poor Alison.

The novella ‘The Strawberry Tree’ is about 82 pages and is for the most part a retrospective by Petra, reliving again her childhood on Majorca forty years ago. This is a cleverly set up intrigue. It would be unfair to reveal too much. There is a brooding menace about the tale, and the descriptive passages put the reader there. And of course her characterisation is excellent; at thirteen, Petra is lacking in confidence while her brother Piers ‘had all the gifts, looks, intellect, charm, simple niceness and, added to these, the generosity of spirit that should come from being favoured by the gods but often does not’(p143).  The story was filmed for TV in the Ruth Rendell Mysteries series starring Lisa Harrow and Simon Ward (1995, the year of publication!).  

 
A mixed bag, then – but worth reading for the Wexford, ‘Clothes’ and the novella.

PS - Considering that 'The Strawberry Tree' must have been under production at the time of publication or just before, it's quite possible that the least satisfying tales were included in order to get the book out, and indeed before they'd had a decent gestation period to evolve. Pure supposition, of course.

Writing – split personality or not

It could be argued that we writers have split personality issues anyway, what with all those characters rumbling about in our heads, not to mention hearing their voices. The question is, should we use pen-names when certain books are different in style or genre?

Fellow Crooked Cat author David W. Robinson has written an interesting blog about writing and typecasting. It’s worth a look.

http://www.dwrob.com/2014/10/wednesday-writing-typecasting/

There are no easy answers. Authors have to make up their own minds on the thorny subject, as styles and the subject matter differ. 

Quite a while ago (1986), Ruth Rendell wanted to get away from her police and suspense tales and tackle darker, deeper psychological themes; so she invented the penname Barbara Vine. My favourite early Vine books are A Dark-adapted Eye, A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon’s Carpet. Certainly, not all of her readers made the switch to the new books and some felt downright uncomfortable with them. Of course she continued writing under both names and eventually the secret was out. She still produces books under both names.

Readers of cozy crime are not necessarily at ease with gritty procedural thrillers; a little gore might be acceptable, but that too is a thin line to walk upon. Perhaps you should give consideration to the appeal of your work before making a leap. Some opinion favours writing to your audience (once you have one or know what it likes); this can become a strait-jacket, however. Contrary opinion says, write for yourself, whatever the genre, which works too – though in the current hard-nosed market-place, that might prove counter-productive. Truth is, the boundaries are gradually melting away, thanks to the wide appeal of the e-book. You might lose old readers when you switch to a different style or genre; equally, you might gain new readers who love the switch.

Bottom line: write what you’re comfortable writing, and don’t compromise yourself. Have faith in your product. Use a pen-name if that makes you comfortable or if it makes commercial sense. My author page on Amazon identifies me under my pen-names.

I’ve dabbled with a few pen-names over the years, for articles, short stories and even novels. I suspect I’ll continue to use a few, depending on the material.  My crime and thriller books published by Crooked Cat (Spanish Eye, Blood of the Dragon Trees, and Sudden Vengeance) are under my Nik Morton moniker; as will the upcoming thrillers Catalyst, The Prague Papers and The Tehran Text.  My westerns are written as Ross Morton (though I made an exception with Bullets for a Ballot, which is by Nik Morton! [Yes, it does get confusing, but as this latter book was likely to be marketed more at US readers, and I was better known in the US as Nik rather than Ross, I opted for that departure from the norm!]

 
So, there you have it. If you’re prolific or want to stretch your writing beyond any particular ghetto, there is no simple choice; you have to go with your gut instinct.

My e-books published by Crooked Cat – Amazon UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Nik+morton+crooked+cat&rh=n%3A341677031%2Ck%3ANik+morton+crooked+cat

My e-books published by Crooked Cat – Amazon COM

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=nik+morton+crooked+cat&rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Anik+morton+crooked+cat