Grasshopper

Tightly woven plot, complex characterizations and an amazingly talented reader (audio version). What more could you want? Vine's books receive consistent rave reviews from both sides of the Atlantic and its easy to see why. I am mystified by the number of unfavorable reviews of this book and felt compelled to add mine to offset the 1 and 2-starred reviews. U.S. fans should be looking forward to reading The Minotaur which is scheduled to be released in March 2006. I was lucky enough to obtain a copy from Great Britain and loved every minute of it as well.

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. I don't think an author who has written over fifty novels can be expected to reproduce the same exact formula in each book. It would get very old. Here, the characters are brilliantly drawn, and very interesting, but they are not mainstream characters. They are young adult misfits, and as such rang very true to me. The part about roof climbing was not so farfetched either -- I don't know if people do it, but if they bungee jump, then it certainly is possible. I also remember reading a story years ago about two young people caught making love (by a traffic helicopter) on top of a bridge tower in NYC. I find it refreshing that Rendell/Vine writes about outsiders -- I get tired of reading about lawyers and academics. And these are middle-class outsiders, not so very far from many readers and our children. I found Clodagh believable if not entirely engaging, and Silver, her boyfriend, right on. An idealistic young man with an inherited income who does not distinguish between good and evil, but finds everyone interesting, and learns through experience observing the other young people in his flop of an apartment. He cannot imagine evil until he meets it... That said, it does not really have one main story line, but multiple threads, without a central conclusion. That didn't bother me. If you enjoy a read you can really get your teeth into, this is for you. If you prefer a standard mystery formula, then maybe not.

Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell) gets a lot of flak for writing thoughtful, reflective books. They aren't typical mysteries or suspense thrillers -- I suspect that was the author's point in setting up a new byline. I've read nearly everything she's published under this pseudonym and all of it's good. The books move at a slowly deliberate pace with a lot of time for character development and a momentum that builds slowly as she lets each character reveal a little more and a little more. This one is particularly unique and original in the way it builds the central character and her relations with the others. There's a risk of becoming self-consciously artsy but Vine never crosses that line -- she just keeps on delivering good writing book after book. As a journalist and author myself, I admire what she does ... I have often wished I could do it myself.

...but the one I read was magnificent. Much like "The House of Stairs" and "A Fatal Inversion", "Grasshopper" deals with the trials and tribulations of a mismatched assortment of roommates whose good intentions lead to disaster. The prose is tight, the characters are fascinating and occasionally infuriating, the criminality is sometimes troublingly ambiguous, and the story is first-rate. My only disappointment? That I finished it so quickly! Stop reading this review this instant and order the book.

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.