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Title: The Keys to the Street: A Novel of Suspense by Ruth Rendell ISBN: 0-440-22392-X Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (14 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Street people, druggies, S&M, etc.
Comment: The novel has a complex plot that moves from character to character. I would suggest that the previous reviewer should re-read the last chapter. There are a number of interwoven plots. There is Mary Jago, escaping from an abusive boyfriend, who thinks she has found a new love; Roman, victim of a tragedy, who has dropped out of life to sleep on the streets; Bean, a 70-year old ex-butler to a man who liked to be beaten, who now works as a dog walker to supplement his small pension; Hob, a druggy who earns a living as an enforcer for drug dealers; Detective Inspector Marnock, who investigates various murders that are committed; an unknown impaler who is killing street people; and an assortment of other characters plus a large number of dogs. Some people like dogs and some people don't, but be careful how you treat them because they have friends who may take revenge in unexpected ways.
The setting is the Regent Park area of London. The gates are closed at night except to residents who have keys, but various other people find their way past the gates. Several people are murdered and their bodies impaled on spiked fences, but that is just one of the plots. There is drug dealing, blackmail, muggings, and there is Mary Jago trying to escape from her ex-boyfriend and find a new life.
The plot takes some surprising twists and turns. Some people get what they deserve, but the abusive ex-boyfriend seems to walk away unscathed (except that he lost his chance with a rich heiress). Perhaps Marnock should have named the killer on the last page instead of making readers figure it out from the clues given, but that means you have to read the book carefully.
Rating: 4
Summary: Entertaining mystery that keeps you guessing.
Comment: This was the first Ruth Rendell book I have read. I enjoyed it greatly and found myself caring about the characters. What really struck me were the unpredictable twists and turns towards the end. Finally a modern mystery where I could enjoy being surprised! I look forward to reading more of Rendell's books.
Rating: 5
Summary: A joy to read. Yet another excellent book
Comment: This novel is rather like a symbolic microcosm of a solar system. That is the only way I can find to describe it. All that characters' lives go around in their own orbit, but occasionally they meet, those orbits cross, and each is influenced by this meeting in some way, be it good or bad, and they carry on once more, their paths forever altered slightly, or maybe not so slightly. Because this is Rendell's world, and in Rendell's world those planets don't always just cross, they collide.
The main plot, I suppose, centres on Mary Jago, a young woman living in London. Mary has donated her own bone marrow to save the lie of a stranger. This generous act of kindness lead directly to the break-up of her relationship with the despiseable Alistair, and she moves out, taking up residence in a house on the edge of Regent's Park, looking after it while the owners are on holiday. However, soon, the man whose live she has saved will alter her own life irrevocably for ever.
Inhabiting Regent's Park (which, I suppose, would be the Sun of the earlier analogy) are the dropouts, the street-people, forgotten and ignored by society, until a vicious killer starts targeting them, leaving their bodies impaled upon the railings that border the park. Rendell creates several of these misfits, the most important one, I suppose, being Roman, a man who took to the streets, leaving behind his past and possessions, when his life was shattered upon the deaths of his wife and young children in a horrific accident. He is particularly interesting.
Then there is Bean, a retired butler-turned-dog-walker who roams the park every day exercising his canine clients, who despises the tramps who take refuge there. And then, most sinister of all, there is Hob, a hopeless drug addict living nearby in a rented flat, who is prepared to carry out acts of varying violence in return for very welcome payment...
I've never read a novel quite like this before, and I doubt that I will again. It is flawless in every way. A book so astoundingly good that I have now read it three times (remarkable, considering that I am rarely even prepared to set time by to re-read a book even once). But, then, almost all Rendell's books have this effect upon me. She has a prose style like no other writer today. It is entirely without emotions, pretension, or anything else, and yet it is powerful and gripping. She doesn't fill her books with unnecessary description - but when she does do descriptions, they are like gems thrown in a buskers case - instead creating a palpable sense of atmosphere and soon-to-be-destroyed normality. She has a brilliant sense of place, making London d seem claustrophobic and terrifying, and I am almost sure that If I suddenly found myself in Regent's Park I would quicken my step distinctly through irrational and superfluous fear entirely of Rendell's creating.
The characters she creates are drawn brilliantly, and are absolutely fascinating, every single one of them, so much so that I would gladly carry on reading about them if this book were even more than thrice its length. I want to know everything about them. The way they interact, each story occasionally connecting with one another, is also fascinating, and Rendell manages to examine brilliantly notions about effects and consequences.
"The Keys to the Street" (a title of genius!) is excellent. The whole thing sparkles with darkness, and holds a subtle originality that, along with other aspects, demonstrate clearly why Ruth Rendell is to be treasured.
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Title: The Lake of Darkness by Ruth Rendell ISBN: 0375704973 Publisher: Random House~trade Pub. Date: September, 2001 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: A Sight for Sore Eyes by RUTH RENDELL ISBN: 0440235448 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 07 March, 2000 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: A Demon in My View by Ruth Rendell ISBN: 0375704914 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Wolf to the Slaughter by Ruth Rendell ISBN: 0345345207 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 1989 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Shake Hands Forever by Ruth Rendell ISBN: 0375704957 Publisher: Random House~trade Pub. Date: July, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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