The Girl Next Door: a mesmerising mystery of murder and memory from the award-winning queen of crime, Ruth Rendell

The Girl Next Door: a mesmerising mystery of murder and memory from the award-winning queen of crime, Ruth Rendell

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Beschreibung

In this psychologically explosive story from "one of the most remarkable novelists of her generation" (People), the discovery of bones in a tin box sends shockwaves across a group of long-time friends.

In the waning months of the second World War, a group of children discover an earthen tunnel in their neighborhood outside London. Throughout the summer of 1944—until one father forbids it—the subterranean space becomes their "secret garden," where the friends play games and tell stories.

Six decades later, beneath a house on the same land, construction workers uncover a tin box containing two skeletal hands, one male and one female. As the discovery makes national news, the friends come together once again, to recall their days in the tunnel for the detective investigating the case. Is the truth buried among these aging friends and their memories?

This impromptu reunion causes long-simmering feelings to bubble to the surface. Alan, stuck in a passionless marriage, begins flirting with Daphne, a glamorous widow. Michael considers contacting his estranged father, who sent Michael to live with an aunt after his mother vanished in 1944. Lewis begins remembering details about his Uncle James, an army private who once accompanied the children into the tunnels, and who later disappeared.

In The Girl Next Door Rendell brilliantly shatters the assumptions about age, showing that the choices people make—and the emotions behind them—remain as potent in late life as they were in youth.
Haupt-Genre
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Sub-Genre
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Format
E-Book
Seitenzahl
354
Preis
7.81 €

Beiträge

2
Alle
2

The bones from a crime committed towards the end of the second World War which were burried in a secret tunnel system are found when a house is built some 70 years later. The story then tells how a group of friends who used to play in these tunnels now start questioning their past and their friendships. I really liked how the book started: you see how the crime is committed through the eyes of the killer. This sounded very promising. But then the book started to get boring. When the friends hear about the discovery of the bones they think back on their lives. They re-consider their friendships and start questioning many things they thought were true. My problem was that there were too many different personalities but none of them enough elaborated for me to really get to know them. They just stayed names and whenever a character made a second appearance I had trouble remembering who he/she was. The whole book just seemed to drag on and on. Ruth Rendell writes two types of mysteries: There are the Insepctor Wexford novels, which are classic murder mysteries. And then there are the stand-alone novels (like The Girl Next Door). Books from first category I really enjoy reading. But books from the latter category never seem to appeal to me. I usually find them quite boring. This is quite surprising as I'm really a fan of the books Ruth Rendell writes under her pseudonym, Barbara Vine: those are psychological thrillers too. I can usually guess what's going to happen or what happened. But the difference is that when I read a Barbara Vine book I always think "No, what I think can't be true, nobody could be that mean." When I read a Ruth Rendell stand-alone book it's more like, "Well, I knew that was about to happen, it was quite obvious." It's actually a pity that Ms Rendell couldn't entertain me more with this book as she is actually a really good writer. 2 to 2.5 stars. (I received a free digital copy via Netgalley. Thanks for the opportunity!)

1

The first bit was so engrossing that i went through it in minutes as soon as it took a leap of years, it got so boring. I couldn't even go further with it and just left the book.

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