The Blood Doctor : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: The Magnificent "BLOOD" Obsession
Review: All indications, when looking at the cover of this book, lead the reader to believe that this will be one of Vine's psychological thrillers. I figured that some surgeon, obsessed with blood, would be traveling the British Isles with scalpel in hand looking for his next victim. But the reader of this book must look a little closer at the two words following the title, THE BLOOD DOCTOR. Those two words are "A Novel." This changes everything.

More on the lines of Vine's A Chimney Sweeper's Boy, this book is not a thriller but does test the psyche of its main character, Martin Nanther, as he takes on the task of writing his great grandfather's biography. I always wonder what compels an author to write under a pseudonym as Ruth Rendall does when she writes as Barbara Vine. A Chimney Sweeper's Boy and The Blood Doctor, both written under the Vine name, are perfect examples of why an author would do this. They are both such a departure from the books written under Rendall's real name. While both are dark and mysterious at times, Vines's books take on a different edge as they weave in and out of the lives of her characters and almost no one escapes scrutiny. This book is such an amazing achievement....so amazing that I couldn't stop thinking about it every time I was forced to put it down to get on with my daily life.

As I mentioned already, Martin Nanther, frustrated author, decides to write about his great grandfather's life. The research involved is so very interesting because Henry Nanther lived in the nineteenth century, was a physician to Queen Victoria and also specialized in hemophilia (a disease very familiar to Queen Victoria and her royal family)....thus the title of the book. When Martin discovers hemophilia in some of Henry's own descendants, the plot thickens and Martin is determined to find its roots as he interviews every distant cousin he can find. This research is also aided by letters written by Henry's children as well as Henry's own journal entries.

At the same time he is doing all this research, Martin is waging war with his own inner demons as his wife of four years is obsessed with having a child...a child that Martin is not looking forward to having. As she continually miscarries, Martin is at a loss to show the empathy he should be feeling but just can't muster. As if this isn't enough stress for one individual, Martin is about to be stripped of his hereditary peerage, and the income that goes along with it, as the House of Lords is being reformed. This is a peerage he inherited from none other than his great grandfather Henry. I found this part of the book so very fascinating as I know so little about the workings of the English government.

So between his great grandfather's obsession with blood, Queen Victoria's hemophiliac royal family, the work involved in researching a biography, a wife who miscarries for no apparent reason and learning about the inner workings of the House of Lords, this book was more than I ever anticipated. You know that feeling when you're not expecting a "great" book and you get one. It's not Rendall and her psychological thrillers....it's Vine at her best writing "A Novel."

Rating:
Summary: The Magnificent "BLOOD" Obsession
Review: All indications, when looking at the cover of this book, lead the reader to believe that this will be one of Vine's psychological thrillers. I figured that some surgeon, obsessed with blood, would be traveling the British Isles with scalpel in hand looking for his next victim. But the reader of this book must look a little closer at the two words following the title, THE BLOOD DOCTOR. Those two words are "A Novel." This changes everything.

More on the lines of Vine's A Chimney Sweeper's Boy, this book is not a thriller but does test the psyche of its main character, Martin Nanther, as he takes on the task of writing his great grandfather's biography. I always wonder what compels an author to write under a pseudonym as Ruth Rendall does when she writes as Barbara Vine. A Chimney Sweeper's Boy and The Blood Doctor, both written under the Vine name, are perfect examples of why an author would do this. They are both such a departure from the books written under Rendall's real name. While both are dark and mysterious at times, Vines's books take on a different edge as they weave in and out of the lives of her characters and almost no one escapes scrutiny. This book is such an amazing achievement....so amazing that I couldn't stop thinking about it every time I was forced to put it down to get on with my daily life.

As I mentioned already, Martin Nanther, frustrated author, decides to write about his great grandfather's life. The research involved is so very interesting because Henry Nanther lived in the nineteenth century, was a physician to Queen Victoria and also specialized in hemophilia (a disease very familiar to Queen Victoria and her royal family)....thus the title of the book. When Martin discovers hemophilia in some of Henry's own descendants, the plot thickens and Martin is determined to find its roots as he interviews every distant cousin he can find. This research is also aided by letters written by Henry's children as well as Henry's own journal entries.

At the same time he is doing all this research, Martin is waging war with his own inner demons as his wife of four years is obsessed with having a child...a child that Martin is not looking forward to having. As she continually miscarries, Martin is at a loss to show the empathy he should be feeling but just can't muster. As if this isn't enough stress for one individual, Martin is about to be stripped of his hereditary peerage, and the income that goes along with it, as the House of Lords is being reformed. This is a peerage he inherited from none other than his great grandfather Henry. I found this part of the book so very fascinating as I know so little about the workings of the English government.

So between his great grandfather's obsession with blood, Queen Victoria's hemophiliac royal family, the work involved in researching a biography, a wife who miscarries for no apparent reason and learning about the inner workings of the House of Lords, this book was more than I ever anticipated. You know that feeling when you're not expecting a "great" book and you get one. It's not Rendall and her psychological thrillers....it's Vine at her best writing "A Novel."

Rating:
Summary: 'SBLOOD!
Review: Barbara Vine's novels never fail to be engaging and unnerving. I read this as fast as I could, impelled to flee the subject of blood and compelled to discover where it was all leading.

The story is not simple: an heriditary peer, Martin Nanther, is writing the biography of his great great grandfather, an heralded doctor to Queen Victoria who specialized in hemophilia. At the time of his most profound research, Martin is also being ousted from his peerage as the House of Commons is changing and hereditary peers are being made redundant, as it were. At the same time his younger second wife, desperate to reproduce, undergoes a series of miscarriages. During his research, he discovers that his great great grandfather masterminded his marriage to accommodate his obsessive medical research and, as a result, suffered intense remorse and grief.

Barbara Vine's ability to weave an intricate, detailed plot involving intense and three-dimensional characters is what elevates this story. Any reader will figure out what exactly has been masterminded by the blood doctor but getting there is the point of the story. The details of Parliamentary protocol and proceedings, the Victorian relationships set against contemporary ones, the efforts to procreate, the disorienting relationships between the begetters and the begotten all serve to keep this novel outside the standard realm of mystery writing. It is, in fact, beyond genre.

Rating:
Summary: What happened to the intensity?
Review: I feverishly look forward to every new Rendel/Vine novel, but I was very disappointed with this one. What is so wonderful about her novels is the opportunity to be inside the head of someone with an off kilter view of reality. She has an uncanny understanding of the warped mind, and the reader is right there with her as the story unfolds. Unfortunately, in the Blood Doctor, we are a hundred and fifty years away from the warped mind. The story is being uncovered by the doctor's great grandson which creates a distance between the subject and the reader. Added to this, the doctor has deliberately destroyed evidence of what he was thinking and feeling at the time the story took place. This makes for a complete lack of immediacy.
Instead of being inside the head of the doctor, something that would have been quite interesting, we are inside the head of his rather boring, though sweet, great grand son. All in all, not up to her usual excellent standards.

Rating:
Summary: The Blood Doctor
Review: I have read Ruth Rendell books but this was the first Barbara Vine. Having been seduced into reading it by reviews of her other books I was most disappointed. I really don't care about the re-organization of the House of Lords, the characters were totally non-involving (couldn't care about a one of them...they are a whiney lot)and the "mystery" wasn't much of a mystery. I dragged myself through the book, hoping against hope that something might occur that would engage me...never happened. A tedious, tedious book.

Rating:
Summary: Tedious, Boring and Dry
Review: I thought this was supposed to be a mystery. However, it was more like watching someone else's vacation photos or reading in depth another person's family tree. Completely mind numbingly boring. The cover and back page reviews state it "builds in tension". HA!It takes almost until the last two pages to solve what we as the reader saw coming miles away, and is so bland in it's actual revealment that who cares????? After all of that talk of Mrs so-and-so married Mr so-and so over and over and over, you just dont care anymore. Dont waste your time. This is not suspense, it's tedium.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of verbiage that delivers little.
Review: In this overlong story of a biographer/hereditary peer's research into the life of his great-grandfather, the 1st Lord Nanther, the reader is able to sort out what Sir Henry was really up to long before the author lays it out in the final pages. At that, it goes out with a whimper rather than the hoped-for bang. Repeated references to genealogical charts were both necessary and bothersome. An "inside" look at the House of Lords during the hereditary peers' swan song was an interesting diversion, but the narrator's (Sir Henry's grandson, Martin)moans and groans after his departure were tiring. Vine/Rendell's writing skills alone kept me doggedly through the first 200 pages (of 369); only then did the story move beyond a snail's pace. The narrator becomes a convincing character only in the final pages, but he has been so tiresome throughout that by then I didn't care. Not recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant psychological and medical mystery.
Review: Ruth Rendell, as Barbara Vine, has again written an original and mesmerizing novel, "The Blood Doctor." It combines all the elements that make this author's writing so compelling. "The Blood Doctor" has elegant prose, vivid descriptive writing, intriguing characters, a riveting plot and an ending that is both shocking and poignant.

Martin Nanther, a Hereditary Peer in the House of Lords, has decided to write a biography of his great-grandfather, Henry Nanther. Henry was an expert on diseases of the blood, particularly hemophilia. In recognition of Henry's work as one of the physicians to Queen Victoria's family, the Queen made him a lord. This title was passed down to Henry's great grandson, Martin, now Henry's biographer.

Rendell interweaves details of Martin's present day life with revelations about Henry Nanther that slowly emerge throughout the novel. Martin is about to lose his peerage as part of a reform bill that will oust most hereditary peers. More disturbing, his beloved wife, Jude, has difficulty carrying a child to term, and she consistently miscarries early in her pregnancies. This failure to have a child is threatening Martin's and Jude's close and loving relationship.

Partly as a distraction from his present-day problems, Martin throws himself into detailed research of his great-grandfather's life. Martin traces distant relatives who have saved valuable letters and notebooks. These papers shed some light on the character of Henry Nanther. However, they also raise some puzzling questions. Henry seems to have been many men at once. On the one hand, he was a charming physician with a soothing bedside manner. On the other hand, Henry was a fanatical scientist who was obsessed with blood diseases, especially hemophilia. Henry was a devoted husband to his wife, Edith. Yet, he was also fickle in his relationships with women. Henry was a cold and distant father to his children. However, when he eventually fathered a son who was deathly ill, Henry treated this son with great love and compassion. Which of these Henrys was the real Henry? What motivated this man to act in such contradictory ways?

In telling this most unusual story, Rendell probes the internal conflicts and twisted motivations that sometimes cause people to behave perversely. She balances this with her touching portrait of Martin and Jude Nanther, whose deep love for one another is sorely tested. Enriching this novel still more is Rendell's colorful description of life in Victorian England as well as the fascinating medical details she provides about genetics and the scourge of hemophilia. "The Blood Doctor" proves once again that Ruth Rendell sets the standard for highly accomplished novels of psychological suspense.

Rating:
Summary: Absorbing psychological mystery
Review: The latest from Ruth Rendell, writing as Barbara Vine, is a complex, slow-building, story of Martin Nanther, middle-aged biography writer and Hereditary Peer, as he researches a book on the life of his enigmatic great-grandfather, Henry Nanther, and prepares for life after the abolition of his seat in the House of Lords.

Henry Nanther, physician to Queen Victoria and specialist in diseases of the blood, particularly hemophilia, received the peerage from his Queen. Henry's diary reveals a cold man, occupied entirely with his work, but Martin's other researches - letters from his children, interviews with little known descendants - begin to turn up darker secrets.

Meanwhile, Martin deals with his own conflicted feelings over his wife's repeated miscarriages and anguish. Already in possession of a son, his marriage is enough for him and it bothers him that his wife wants a child so badly. His guilt and resentment mingle with the regret he feels over the bill which will erase hereditary seats form the House of Lords.

Following the family tree makes for some confusion at the outset, but Vine builds her story with plenty of uneasy menace and strong characters, pleasant and unpleasant. The story is more absorbing than compelling (and astute readers will figure things out), but Vine's characterizations, development and pacing continue to keep her work at the apex of psychological mysteries.