The Brimstone Wedding

Rating:
Summary: wonderfully engrossing book
Review: another marvelous creation from that all time master of mystery, suspense, psychology, and the human heart, barbara vine, aka ruth rendell. this book will take you in and guide you to the strong unexpected ending and not let you leave until you get there. great characters, true to life situations, interesting subplots and all weaved around the search we all make for love and the pitfalls along the way. all sides of an adulterous relationship are explored and some people in the book find themselves in two positions, being betrayed and betraying others at the same time. great novel, very atmospheric of the country side and the seasons and the inner lives of men and woman. it may be available in the library if you cannot get it on-line or in a bookstore and i would suggest trying that, you will enjoy this book, its one of her best efforts.

Rating:
Summary: Atmospheric mystery of infidelity
Review: Driven by atmosphere and character, this novel by Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine, centers around two stories of infidelity and deception.

Genevieve, 32, a working-class caretaker at a private nursing home, confides her affair to her favorite patient, Stella, who is middle-class, educated, affluent and dying. Stella responds with the keys to a house none of her family knows she owns, a house no one has visited in 30 years. She asks Genevieve to report its condition.

Shocked that something so valuable could be simply abandoned -for whatever reason - Genevieve appropriates it as a trysting place, her curiosity only slightly piqued by the abandoned, burned car in the garage, the photographs hidden away, the food and champagne left in the refrigerator.

And so begins a story in tandem as Genevieve's stolen meetings alternate with Stella's story of her own doomed love. Character precipitates the events of the plot, and as we increasingly sympathize with Stella's shy dignity and Genevieve's fretful ardor, foreboding envelops the narrative like a London fog. Not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: THE BRIMSTONE WEDDING is one of Barbara Vine's finest novels, a blend of romance, murder, mystery, and much adultery that forms a remarkably peaceful book. Once more, Vine gives us a clever and intricately developed plot and vividly drawn characters. Though the story has its dark, suspenseful moments, it has an overall calm, serene overtone, with the exception of the exciting and explosive climax, a section you'll literally plow through so quickly you won't be able to turn the pages fast enough. Finally, on the very last page, Vine demonstrates once more that few authors are so gifted at throwing in the final, sudden twist, the twist that is totally unpredictable, yet fits in logically with the plot, and makes you look back on the whole story and the characters differently. This last, spectacular twist is likely to leave the reader breathless but satisfied. A solid achievement, not quite as compelling as A DARK-ADAPTED EYE, but every bit as readable. Well done.