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"When his father dies, Carl Martin inherits a house in an increasingly rich and trendy London neighborhood. Carl needs cash, however, so he rents the upstairs room and kitchen to the first person he interviews, Dermot McKinnon. That was colossal mistake number one. Mistake number two was keeping his father's bizarre collection of homeopathic "cures" that he found in the medicine cabinet, including a stash of controversial diet pills. Mistake number three was selling fifty of those diet pills to a friend, who is then found dead. Dermot seizes a nefarious opportunity and begins to blackmail Carl, refusing to pay rent, and creepily invading Carl's space. Ingeniously weaving together two storylines that finally merge in one shocking turn, Ruth Rendell describes one man's spiral into darkness-- and murder-- as he falls victim to a diabolical foe he cannot escape" --… (more)
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As for her last book, it’s a perfect
If you aren’t familiar with Ruth Rendell’s work, then this last book of hers will open up much wonderful reading time ahead for you, as she wrote over 60 novels, most under her own name but also some under her pseudonym, Barbara Vine. Her sharp insight into the human mind and her wry humor make her books must reads. I’ve heard her work described as “cozy mysteries” but I don’t see that at all. Most of her work, including this one, gives me chills and while they may not be excessively gory, they’re certainly not cozy. Recommended.
This book was given to me by the publisher through Edelweiss in return for an honest review.
On the other hand, this was clearly a book written by an elderly person about young people, and it's set in modern day, so that the characters all behaved oddly, as though they had abruptly time traveled and were still uncertain about the ways the world had changed. They would have fit beautifully in a book set fifty years earlier, but they all seemed more than a little bizarre in 2015. The plot was also weak, not in forward momentum, but in plausibility.
The story revolves around Carl, a novelist who takes a renter for the top floor of his house as he works on his second book. Carl is an odd character; incurious about the world around him in a way that seems unlikely in a writer, with a passive personality, but that's nothing compared to the man he lets the flat to; Dermot is obsessed with religion, and a natural sneak. When he discovers something about Carl, he is quick to blackmail him, and Carl is quick to allow himself to be blackmailed, lacking the imagination necessary to find a solution. Then there's Lizzie, who is living on very little money in a terrible flat. When a friend is murdered, she moves in and uses her dead friend's clothes, make-up and food. She's frivolous and selfish, with a tendency to lie when convenient, and her straight-laced father dislikes her. But her frivolity and fibs will be punished in time.
The plot is weak, and there is so much going on, from muggings to bombs to kidnapping to murder, all smashed together. Rendell at the height of her powers would have woven these disparate threads into something amazing, but this is not a plot that even the most credulous of readers can accept. If you adore Rendell's writing and have read all her other books, you'll be reading this anyway, but this isn't the book to begin with. She has written so many better books.
While I wouldn't rate it in her best 10, it still demonstrates what a
There is no doubt here who the "murderer" is, even though Carl caused his friend's death unwittingly. But it preys constantly on his mind and he becomes unable to work, to eat, to sleep. And Rendell asks the reader whether we would react in the same way. Or would we get it over and done with, and front up to the police with an admission that we were the source of the tablets that in all probability killed Stacey. Carl chooses not to and thus becomes the victim of Dermot, his upstairs tenant, who blackmails him by refusing to pay any rent. With no income, and unable to work, Carl sinks lower and lower, to the point where his girlfriend leaves him, and Dermot preys on his mind.
The story just misses out on creating enough tension although there is a second murder, and also another attempted one.
There is a second story thread running alongside the first: Lizzie Milsom, a friend of the dead girl Stacey, who moves into her flat, wears her clothes, and finally gets kidnapped in a case of mistaken identity. When Lizzie's father Tom gets a free bus card when he turns 60, he takes up a new hobby: travelling on buses. After being beaten up at one bus stop, he then has a nasty experience when a passenger gets off a bus, leaving his rucksack behind.
So a good if not brilliant final outing for an author who has left an indelible mark on British crime fiction.
For those who do not know, Ruth Rendell was the creator of Inspector Wexford, and also wrote under the pseudonym of Barbara Vine.
Though I haven’t equally liked all of Rendell’s enormous back-catalog, I have never left a book of hers unfinished. Dark Corners was almost my first. She is so good at portraying the ultimate passive, non-confrontational male. Carl is one of those people who needs a good shaking. At
Another thing Rendell did really well is portray the seriously delusional. Dermot is by far the most disturbing. His outward normality and false piety are a pretty good cover for a person with an outstanding ability to justify anything to himself. It would be gutsy if it weren’t so twisted. Lizzie is another character who is deluded beyond the bounds of her reality. She foists herself into a dead “friend’s” life and tries to live vicariously by taking over her now empty flat (and drinking her top shelf booze, wearing her designer clothes and eating her gourmet food).
It takes a while for the main Carl/Dermot plot to catch up with Lizzie, but it eventually does in a typically neat and reasonably satisfying way. There’s a second and finally a third bout of blackmail, but a really inert and mild form so that the ultimate solution to Carl’s problem is quite weird. It’s a strange net that catches a lot of people in this novel, and while I’m not sorry for the time I spent with it, I don’t think it’s her best. Not a bad way to go out though.
As the story opens, Carl Martin is a writer with one published work to his name, but that novel, Death’s Door, had not exactly made him a rich man. Carl is living in a house recently inherited from his father, and because he has no source of income other than his writing, he decides to take on a border. Luckily for Carl, because the house is in one of London’s trendier neighborhoods, he easily locates a border willing to pay him 1200 pounds per month for the three upstairs rooms. That, though, would turn out to be a huge mistake, one Carl will regret for the rest of his life.
Along with the house, Carl inherited its contents, among them his father’s vast collection of homeopathic “medicines” and cure-alls – including a stash of diet pills that are as likely to kill the person taking them as they are to help her shed a few unwanted pounds. Unfortunately for Carl (and especially for his friend Stacey), that is exactly what happens when he lets Stacey talk him into selling her fifty of the pills. Carl’s border recognizes a good blackmail opportunity when he sees one, and after Stacey’s body is discovered, he begins to “reverse blackmail” Carl by refusing to pay his monthly rent.
In a side plot (which will tellingly crash into Carl’s world soon enough), a one-time friend of the dead Stacey’s has taken to living in Stacey’s apartment where she will remain until being forced out by the dead woman’s family. In her trademark fashion, Rendell explores deeply both the backgrounds of her characters and what is going on inside their heads. She wants her readers to understand why her characters do the things they do, but seldom has an entire cast of her characters been as flawed as the one in Dark Corners. Victims and criminals are, in fact, so much alike that the reader is hard pressed to find one to root for in this tale of blackmail, murder, and unintended consequences.
Dark Corners is not destined to become my favorite Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine novel. Nor is it, in my estimation, one of her better books, but because it is her last it will always have a place somewhere on my shelves and in my memory.
Ruth Rendell, who also wrote as Barbara Vine, passed away in 2015, just a few months before this book was published. I had planned on
But, I needed to turn in a review for the book, one way or another, so I started all over from the beginning, and forged ahead, determined to make it all the way through, without giving up.
Carl, a novelist, inherits his father’s large and unusual supply of home remedies, along with a nice home, but needs help making ends meet, so he rents out an upstairs room, and quickly becomes rather dependent on that income.
When his friend, Stacey, an actress, desperate to lose weight, sees his father’s diet pills, Carl agrees to sell her some, a transaction Carl’s new tenant witnesses. So, when Stacey dies suddenly, the pills being a major contributor to her death, Carl finds himself suffering from a moral dilemma, and worried he could be held responsible. But, his problems are compounded by his tenant’s decision to blackmail Carl.
From here the story becomes a cat and mouse game between Carl and his tenant, with a slight amount of dark humor tossed in. Carl, who is normally a little bland and mild-mannered, begins to slowly unravel as his conscience weighs on him and he begins to crumble under the pressure of being blackmailed and the ever present possibility his dark secret will be exposed.
Alongside this story, is a secondary thread, that slowly intersects with Carl’s story, and while it’s rather odd, it was also weirdly absorbing.
Although I was determined to get this book finished, I still found it very slow going, and plodded through it at a very slow rate of speed. It was not until the second half of the book that things really started to pick up and the suspense began to build in earnest.
Despite the fact that my interest was finally peaked, the story was still pretty predictable, except for Lizzie’s situation, which I could never quite figure out. The plot was rather clever, but not exactly unique.
For me the ending was extremely abrupt and just plain… well plain. I felt like I had gone through all of this for nothing, although I probably should have guessed this was how things would play out.
I really hate that this was Ruth’s last impression, because this is not her best effort. But, one must remember that the author was in her mid-eighties when she passed and I certainly hope my mind will be that sharp if I am lucky to live that long.
I have a nice collection of Ruth Rendell novels and a smattering of her Barbara Vine stories too. I enjoyed the long running Inspector Wexford series as well, and someday I hope to complete my collection of those books.
I still plan to feature Ruth on the blog someday and pay tribute to her and her work, as she was one of my favorite mystery writers for a long time.
Even though this book failed to make a huge impression on me, it’s still a solid enough effort, and any diehard fan of Ruth Rendell will want to add this book to their collection.
The only flaws were some behavior that kind of stretched credibility, and some
Read and reviewed in 2020