Least enjoyable of all Ruth Rendall's books, 15 Jul 2008
Having enjoyed pretty much all of Barbara Vine's other books, this was a big disappointment - too 'tricksy' and self-consciously clever and I really didn't care what happened to any of the odious characters!

Ruth Rendell prejudiced? Absurd!, 28 Feb 2007
I felt I had to repudiate the ridiculous assertions made in the previous review. Ruth Rendell has been an active gay rights campaigner for decades; she frequently deals with issues of sexuality in her books and it is always with great sympathy and sensitivity. The reviewer below claims there are no happy gay couples in the Rendell / Vine books (in fact, there is a such a couple in Asta's Book)- well, are there many happy straight couples in her books either? Considering the dark tone and subject matter of her fiction, would anyone expect to find them populated with happy couples of either preference? Besides, Rendell clearly wants to highlight some of the injustices that gay men and women face through her work, and an endless parade of blissful relationships would hardly serve the purpose. I suggest the reviewer vents his anger upon a source of genuine homophobia, instead of directing his paranoid accusations against a writer who has shown nothing but sympathy for the gay community throughout her career.


Beautiful but prejudiced, 14 Feb 2007
As a gay man I was reluctant to read this book, despite being a deeply appreciative reader of Rendell/Vine for years. The story is beautifully told, as we would expect from Rendell, but once again a familar theme of latent homophobia builds and builds throughout her text. Has anyone else, I wonder, ever noticed how Rendell/Vine's gay men always fall into two categories and end up meeting two fates? The happy ones get killed, often horribly: Desmond in 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy' beaten to death, Peter, 'King Solomon's Carpet' riddled with AIDS, Ivo, in this work, stabbed to death very conveniently for the suddenly-heterosexual hero. We'll gloss over the hinted-at but similarlly violently truncated relationship between Henry Nanther and Richard Hamillton (train disaster doing for Richard) in 'The Blood Doctor'. The unhappy ones get magically, and implausibly, straightened out: Gerald, 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy', for example, and here again, the character Tim, who ends up practically making love to his new-found heterosexual lover over Ivo's corpse. Given the enormous sensitivity of this writer of intelligence, one wonders what it is that leaves her incapable of producing a single work where a suceessful gay relationship is portrayed. In this book, the violence against the character Ivo isn't even necessary and seems only included to tidy things up so that the smuggly triumphant Tim and Ivo's sister can have their straight happy-ever-after. Sorry, but this book is little more than old prejudices romantically repackaged, fit only for straight readers thinking themselves liberal - just so long as the gay guy ends up dead. Again.

Some Books Are Too Short, 25 Feb 2004
After reading the very first chapter, I knew i was going to love this book. I was mesmersised by the first chapter, and already felt so involved in the story that it was unbelieveable. I've long been aware of Rendell's genius, but this was a shock even for me.

The story actually moves pretty slowly, but the suspense and tension is just unbearable. You know very well that cataclysmic events are going to occur, but of how and when you know nothing. The sense of wonderment you feel at Rendell (in any of her incarnations) is simply awe-inspiring. You read and read and read, completely unable to tear your eyes from the story, even though its moving with a slow pace. Its thrilling, suspenseful and beautifully tense. And I loved it.

The plot is simple - a telling of how a gay love-affair leads to the chill Pacific north, and fromt hence to murder - but very strong. There are good, strong, simple, sensible, realistic twists. They turn the story once or twice, adding just the right amoung of freshness and surprise.

The characters are superbly well drawn and believeable. and quite likeable, despite their flaws. The completely unsettling thing about Rendell's books are the fact that, in this case at least, the people seem quite, quite normal. Tim is just a normal young man, struggling with his identity and sexuality, experiencing the world for what it really is. He's nothing special. Has no psychological abnormalities, is not in any damaged And yet he is driven to murder. This novel is a bravura display of how circumstances can drive people to commit horrible deeds. Quite sane, normal people, slowly taken hold of.

This is a wonderful book. A masterpiece. The writing is just first class, cold, icy, gripping, and the descriptions of the places in which this novel are set are simply stunning. I have never been to Alaska (in particular) but through her descriptions i found myself transported there. And now, my window to it is closed, I want to visit it. It's a desire that should pass in a few days, but it's a powerful thing to feel simply after reading a book. No Night is Too Long is a dark, icy wasteland of a novel; an erotic and disturbing slice of Rendell's dangeorus world.

I would reccomend this to everyone. I have in the past held of reading Barbara Vine, because i assumed that they would be something very different. So different as to need publishing under a different name. My, though, was I wrong. After all, a Rendell by any other name is still a Rendell. These books still contain the intensity of subtle plot, great characters, good twists, and all the things I expect from Rendell. It has been months since i've read anything new by her, and now i have discovered this new rich casket of wonders, my future in reading looks very bright indeed.

The best book I've ever read..., 07 Feb 2003
I usually stick to one particular genre but after last years new years resolution to read a wider range I encountered this brilliant book, and what a great thing too.
The book honestly is the best book I've ever read. It is fantastically written and is a credit to Ruth Rendell (Barbara Vine).
The story is about Tim and his love life as he ventures from his love for a university student to a professor and finds his sexuality. However, the true love is across the Atlantic living in canada.

The story is gripping and I didn't want to put it down. I can not describe how fantastic this book was. I'd recommend it to anyone. The only bad point to the book is that I knew I'd reach the end.

Least enjoyable of all Ruth Rendall's books, 15 Jul 2008
Having enjoyed pretty much all of Barbara Vine's other books, this was a big disappointment - too 'tricksy' and self-consciously clever and I really didn't care what happened to any of the odious characters!

Ruth Rendell prejudiced? Absurd!, 28 Feb 2007
I felt I had to repudiate the ridiculous assertions made in the previous review. Ruth Rendell has been an active gay rights campaigner for decades; she frequently deals with issues of sexuality in her books and it is always with great sympathy and sensitivity. The reviewer below claims there are no happy gay couples in the Rendell / Vine books (in fact, there is a such a couple in Asta's Book)- well, are there many happy straight couples in her books either? Considering the dark tone and subject matter of her fiction, would anyone expect to find them populated with happy couples of either preference? Besides, Rendell clearly wants to highlight some of the injustices that gay men and women face through her work, and an endless parade of blissful relationships would hardly serve the purpose. I suggest the reviewer vents his anger upon a source of genuine homophobia, instead of directing his paranoid accusations against a writer who has shown nothing but sympathy for the gay community throughout her career.


Beautiful but prejudiced, 14 Feb 2007
As a gay man I was reluctant to read this book, despite being a deeply appreciative reader of Rendell/Vine for years. The story is beautifully told, as we would expect from Rendell, but once again a familar theme of latent homophobia builds and builds throughout her text. Has anyone else, I wonder, ever noticed how Rendell/Vine's gay men always fall into two categories and end up meeting two fates? The happy ones get killed, often horribly: Desmond in 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy' beaten to death, Peter, 'King Solomon's Carpet' riddled with AIDS, Ivo, in this work, stabbed to death very conveniently for the suddenly-heterosexual hero. We'll gloss over the hinted-at but similarlly violently truncated relationship between Henry Nanther and Richard Hamillton (train disaster doing for Richard) in 'The Blood Doctor'. The unhappy ones get magically, and implausibly, straightened out: Gerald, 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy', for example, and here again, the character Tim, who ends up practically making love to his new-found heterosexual lover over Ivo's corpse. Given the enormous sensitivity of this writer of intelligence, one wonders what it is that leaves her incapable of producing a single work where a suceessful gay relationship is portrayed. In this book, the violence against the character Ivo isn't even necessary and seems only included to tidy things up so that the smuggly triumphant Tim and Ivo's sister can have their straight happy-ever-after. Sorry, but this book is little more than old prejudices romantically repackaged, fit only for straight readers thinking themselves liberal - just so long as the gay guy ends up dead. Again.

Some Books Are Too Short, 25 Feb 2004
After reading the very first chapter, I knew i was going to love this book. I was mesmersised by the first chapter, and already felt so involved in the story that it was unbelieveable. I've long been aware of Rendell's genius, but this was a shock even for me.

The story actually moves pretty slowly, but the suspense and tension is just unbearable. You know very well that cataclysmic events are going to occur, but of how and when you know nothing. The sense of wonderment you feel at Rendell (in any of her incarnations) is simply awe-inspiring. You read and read and read, completely unable to tear your eyes from the story, even though its moving with a slow pace. Its thrilling, suspenseful and beautifully tense. And I loved it.

The plot is simple - a telling of how a gay love-affair leads to the chill Pacific north, and fromt hence to murder - but very strong. There are good, strong, simple, sensible, realistic twists. They turn the story once or twice, adding just the right amoung of freshness and surprise.

The characters are superbly well drawn and believeable. and quite likeable, despite their flaws. The completely unsettling thing about Rendell's books are the fact that, in this case at least, the people seem quite, quite normal. Tim is just a normal young man, struggling with his identity and sexuality, experiencing the world for what it really is. He's nothing special. Has no psychological abnormalities, is not in any damaged And yet he is driven to murder. This novel is a bravura display of how circumstances can drive people to commit horrible deeds. Quite sane, normal people, slowly taken hold of.

This is a wonderful book. A masterpiece. The writing is just first class, cold, icy, gripping, and the descriptions of the places in which this novel are set are simply stunning. I have never been to Alaska (in particular) but through her descriptions i found myself transported there. And now, my window to it is closed, I want to visit it. It's a desire that should pass in a few days, but it's a powerful thing to feel simply after reading a book. No Night is Too Long is a dark, icy wasteland of a novel; an erotic and disturbing slice of Rendell's dangeorus world.

I would reccomend this to everyone. I have in the past held of reading Barbara Vine, because i assumed that they would be something very different. So different as to need publishing under a different name. My, though, was I wrong. After all, a Rendell by any other name is still a Rendell. These books still contain the intensity of subtle plot, great characters, good twists, and all the things I expect from Rendell. It has been months since i've read anything new by her, and now i have discovered this new rich casket of wonders, my future in reading looks very bright indeed.

The best book I've ever read..., 07 Feb 2003
I usually stick to one particular genre but after last years new years resolution to read a wider range I encountered this brilliant book, and what a great thing too.
The book honestly is the best book I've ever read. It is fantastically written and is a credit to Ruth Rendell (Barbara Vine).
The story is about Tim and his love life as he ventures from his love for a university student to a professor and finds his sexuality. However, the true love is across the Atlantic living in canada.

The story is gripping and I didn't want to put it down. I can not describe how fantastic this book was. I'd recommend it to anyone. The only bad point to the book is that I knew I'd reach the end.

Comic but chilling underrated Edwardian masterpiece, 19 Apr 2001
When Ingeborg Bullivant, dutiful daughter of the overbearing Bishop of Redchester, finds herself surprisingly at liberty in London with seven guineas to spend after some dental work proves to be more straightforward than expected, an audacious idea enters her head: to spend the money on a 'Dent's Excursion' to the Continent. This act of rebellion proves to be straightforward enough to carry out - but turns out to have unforeseen consequences, with Ingeborg ending up the wife of a pastor in an isolated German village.

In this stunning novel, first published in 1914, Elizabeth von Arnim describes Ingeborg's adventures: her naive, optimistic and ever dutiful attempts to make a success of her new life and subsequent dramatic 'elopement' to Italy.

Like all von Arnim's novels, the strongest theme of the book is the helplessness of women in a world where men have the power, and it is this that gives the book its devastatingly macabre undertones, as we see the helpless Ingeborg attempting to make sense of situations she does not understand. Von Armin's view of human motivation is a distinctive one, strangely passive and yet wholly convincing, as we see how actions are governed by everything from religious belief to the euphoria at being finally free from the toothache.

It is this incongruity that provides some of the humour of the novel. But von Arnim's characters are also richly comic: the pompous pastor, obsessed with his scientific studies into manure and pigs, the affected, egotistical artist (reputedly partly based on von Arnim's lover H.G.Wells), and of course the villagers Ingeborg encounters. Culture clashes, and Ingeborg's bewilderment at the rigid but never explained customs of her new neighbours, lead to some deliciously humorous scenes, always described with a perceptiveness and lightness of touch which make them truly memorable.

In the end it is the book's ability to be as genuinely funny as it is macabre that makes it stand out as a masterpiece; the final scene in the book is one which will raise the hairs on the back of the reader's neck and make it live on in the memory a long time.

Least enjoyable of all Ruth Rendall's books, 15 Jul 2008
Having enjoyed pretty much all of Barbara Vine's other books, this was a big disappointment - too 'tricksy' and self-consciously clever and I really didn't care what happened to any of the odious characters!

Ruth Rendell prejudiced? Absurd!, 28 Feb 2007
I felt I had to repudiate the ridiculous assertions made in the previous review. Ruth Rendell has been an active gay rights campaigner for decades; she frequently deals with issues of sexuality in her books and it is always with great sympathy and sensitivity. The reviewer below claims there are no happy gay couples in the Rendell / Vine books (in fact, there is a such a couple in Asta's Book)- well, are there many happy straight couples in her books either? Considering the dark tone and subject matter of her fiction, would anyone expect to find them populated with happy couples of either preference? Besides, Rendell clearly wants to highlight some of the injustices that gay men and women face through her work, and an endless parade of blissful relationships would hardly serve the purpose. I suggest the reviewer vents his anger upon a source of genuine homophobia, instead of directing his paranoid accusations against a writer who has shown nothing but sympathy for the gay community throughout her career.


Beautiful but prejudiced, 14 Feb 2007
As a gay man I was reluctant to read this book, despite being a deeply appreciative reader of Rendell/Vine for years. The story is beautifully told, as we would expect from Rendell, but once again a familar theme of latent homophobia builds and builds throughout her text. Has anyone else, I wonder, ever noticed how Rendell/Vine's gay men always fall into two categories and end up meeting two fates? The happy ones get killed, often horribly: Desmond in 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy' beaten to death, Peter, 'King Solomon's Carpet' riddled with AIDS, Ivo, in this work, stabbed to death very conveniently for the suddenly-heterosexual hero. We'll gloss over the hinted-at but similarlly violently truncated relationship between Henry Nanther and Richard Hamillton (train disaster doing for Richard) in 'The Blood Doctor'. The unhappy ones get magically, and implausibly, straightened out: Gerald, 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy', for example, and here again, the character Tim, who ends up practically making love to his new-found heterosexual lover over Ivo's corpse. Given the enormous sensitivity of this writer of intelligence, one wonders what it is that leaves her incapable of producing a single work where a suceessful gay relationship is portrayed. In this book, the violence against the character Ivo isn't even necessary and seems only included to tidy things up so that the smuggly triumphant Tim and Ivo's sister can have their straight happy-ever-after. Sorry, but this book is little more than old prejudices romantically repackaged, fit only for straight readers thinking themselves liberal - just so long as the gay guy ends up dead. Again.

Some Books Are Too Short, 25 Feb 2004
After reading the very first chapter, I knew i was going to love this book. I was mesmersised by the first chapter, and already felt so involved in the story that it was unbelieveable. I've long been aware of Rendell's genius, but this was a shock even for me.

The story actually moves pretty slowly, but the suspense and tension is just unbearable. You know very well that cataclysmic events are going to occur, but of how and when you know nothing. The sense of wonderment you feel at Rendell (in any of her incarnations) is simply awe-inspiring. You read and read and read, completely unable to tear your eyes from the story, even though its moving with a slow pace. Its thrilling, suspenseful and beautifully tense. And I loved it.

The plot is simple - a telling of how a gay love-affair leads to the chill Pacific north, and fromt hence to murder - but very strong. There are good, strong, simple, sensible, realistic twists. They turn the story once or twice, adding just the right amoung of freshness and surprise.

The characters are superbly well drawn and believeable. and quite likeable, despite their flaws. The completely unsettling thing about Rendell's books are the fact that, in this case at least, the people seem quite, quite normal. Tim is just a normal young man, struggling with his identity and sexuality, experiencing the world for what it really is. He's nothing special. Has no psychological abnormalities, is not in any damaged And yet he is driven to murder. This novel is a bravura display of how circumstances can drive people to commit horrible deeds. Quite sane, normal people, slowly taken hold of.

This is a wonderful book. A masterpiece. The writing is just first class, cold, icy, gripping, and the descriptions of the places in which this novel are set are simply stunning. I have never been to Alaska (in particular) but through her descriptions i found myself transported there. And now, my window to it is closed, I want to visit it. It's a desire that should pass in a few days, but it's a powerful thing to feel simply after reading a book. No Night is Too Long is a dark, icy wasteland of a novel; an erotic and disturbing slice of Rendell's dangeorus world.

I would reccomend this to everyone. I have in the past held of reading Barbara Vine, because i assumed that they would be something very different. So different as to need publishing under a different name. My, though, was I wrong. After all, a Rendell by any other name is still a Rendell. These books still contain the intensity of subtle plot, great characters, good twists, and all the things I expect from Rendell. It has been months since i've read anything new by her, and now i have discovered this new rich casket of wonders, my future in reading looks very bright indeed.

The best book I've ever read..., 07 Feb 2003
I usually stick to one particular genre but after last years new years resolution to read a wider range I encountered this brilliant book, and what a great thing too.
The book honestly is the best book I've ever read. It is fantastically written and is a credit to Ruth Rendell (Barbara Vine).
The story is about Tim and his love life as he ventures from his love for a university student to a professor and finds his sexuality. However, the true love is across the Atlantic living in canada.

The story is gripping and I didn't want to put it down. I can not describe how fantastic this book was. I'd recommend it to anyone. The only bad point to the book is that I knew I'd reach the end.

Comic but chilling underrated Edwardian masterpiece, 19 Apr 2001
When Ingeborg Bullivant, dutiful daughter of the overbearing Bishop of Redchester, finds herself surprisingly at liberty in London with seven guineas to spend after some dental work proves to be more straightforward than expected, an audacious idea enters her head: to spend the money on a 'Dent's Excursion' to the Continent. This act of rebellion proves to be straightforward enough to carry out - but turns out to have unforeseen consequences, with Ingeborg ending up the wife of a pastor in an isolated German village.

In this stunning novel, first published in 1914, Elizabeth von Arnim describes Ingeborg's adventures: her naive, optimistic and ever dutiful attempts to make a success of her new life and subsequent dramatic 'elopement' to Italy.

Like all von Arnim's novels, the strongest theme of the book is the helplessness of women in a world where men have the power, and it is this that gives the book its devastatingly macabre undertones, as we see the helpless Ingeborg attempting to make sense of situations she does not understand. Von Armin's view of human motivation is a distinctive one, strangely passive and yet wholly convincing, as we see how actions are governed by everything from religious belief to the euphoria at being finally free from the toothache.

It is this incongruity that provides some of the humour of the novel. But von Arnim's characters are also richly comic: the pompous pastor, obsessed with his scientific studies into manure and pigs, the affected, egotistical artist (reputedly partly based on von Arnim's lover H.G.Wells), and of course the villagers Ingeborg encounters. Culture clashes, and Ingeborg's bewilderment at the rigid but never explained customs of her new neighbours, lead to some deliciously humorous scenes, always described with a perceptiveness and lightness of touch which make them truly memorable.

In the end it is the book's ability to be as genuinely funny as it is macabre that makes it stand out as a masterpiece; the final scene in the book is one which will raise the hairs on the back of the reader's neck and make it live on in the memory a long time.

Couldn't put it down!, 08 Sep 2004
I have read a number of Penny Vincenzi novels before and have always enjoyed them, however "Almost a Crime" really surpasses the rest. From the first chapter you find yourself turning the pages almost compulsively, and it is so difficult to put down that I ended up bringing it everywhere with me, just to snatch a few minutes reading wherever I could! A truly gripping read.

A Delightful Read, 23 Oct 2002
This story is about this perfect couple, Octavia and Tom Flemming who have a marriage made in heaven. Society looks up to this attractive and golden couple; in fact everyone does. Well heeled they both are and in prominent positions to boot.But that's until the cookie crumbles and Tom begins to have a torrid and steamy affair, putting his wife through so much embarassment, sickness and paranoia, she can hardly bear to leave the house. And look who he is having the affair with? There is betrayal amongst friends and this obviously affects the couple's professional lives interferring with their wealthy status . This book is a stunner with its variety of characters.....especially the ladies....some plain though interesting all the same, while others are attractive and rather hoity toity. The big question however is will this marriaage between this golden couple survive? Another good one from Penny Vincenzi....go for it. You love it and won't be satisfied until you've found out whodunnit.

a good plot but a slapdash end, 12 Feb 2002
The plot and the characters are really interesting but I was very disapointed by the end. I had the feeling the author wanted to be done with her book as she clearly not allowed her characters to explain themselves and resolve their issues (especially work/family time).

A fantastic unputtdownable experience!, 23 Dec 2000
This novel conveys the ultimate power marriage, its positive impact on the individuals' businesses and social life, and the intrusion into family quality time. It was an excellent portrayal of this power marriage and working parents' family life as well as conveying the ultimate betrayal in a marriage.

However, the beauty of the thrill of this novel which made me read and read as I couldn't put it down was the integration of the other characters. I was particularly fascinated by the Muirhead family, and Louise and her mother Anna. They were all very strong and interesting characters who introduced fascinating sub plots to the main drama.

I have been a big fan of Penny Vincenzi for a couple of years, and this novel is definitely one of my favourites as it covered such a lot of themes which did not cliche but enhanced the plot and characters.

A very enjoyable read!

Enthralling!, 01 Nov 2000
I found it absolutely impossible to put this book down. I am a devoute book worm, but this came everywhere with me. You just have to keep reading to find out what happens next. The characters are varied and any one would identifiy with at lest one of them. I have loaned the book to 3 other people and they felt the same, this is the most enthralling book we have read for a long while! When's the next one?

Least enjoyable of all Ruth Rendall's books, 15 Jul 2008
Having enjoyed pretty much all of Barbara Vine's other books, this was a big disappointment - too 'tricksy' and self-consciously clever and I really didn't care what happened to any of the odious characters!

Ruth Rendell prejudiced? Absurd!, 28 Feb 2007
I felt I had to repudiate the ridiculous assertions made in the previous review. Ruth Rendell has been an active gay rights campaigner for decades; she frequently deals with issues of sexuality in her books and it is always with great sympathy and sensitivity. The reviewer below claims there are no happy gay couples in the Rendell / Vine books (in fact, there is a such a couple in Asta's Book)- well, are there many happy straight couples in her books either? Considering the dark tone and subject matter of her fiction, would anyone expect to find them populated with happy couples of either preference? Besides, Rendell clearly wants to highlight some of the injustices that gay men and women face through her work, and an endless parade of blissful relationships would hardly serve the purpose. I suggest the reviewer vents his anger upon a source of genuine homophobia, instead of directing his paranoid accusations against a writer who has shown nothing but sympathy for the gay community throughout her career.


Beautiful but prejudiced, 14 Feb 2007
As a gay man I was reluctant to read this book, despite being a deeply appreciative reader of Rendell/Vine for years. The story is beautifully told, as we would expect from Rendell, but once again a familar theme of latent homophobia builds and builds throughout her text. Has anyone else, I wonder, ever noticed how Rendell/Vine's gay men always fall into two categories and end up meeting two fates? The happy ones get killed, often horribly: Desmond in 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy' beaten to death, Peter, 'King Solomon's Carpet' riddled with AIDS, Ivo, in this work, stabbed to death very conveniently for the suddenly-heterosexual hero. We'll gloss over the hinted-at but similarlly violently truncated relationship between Henry Nanther and Richard Hamillton (train disaster doing for Richard) in 'The Blood Doctor'. The unhappy ones get magically, and implausibly, straightened out: Gerald, 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy', for example, and here again, the character Tim, who ends up practically making love to his new-found heterosexual lover over Ivo's corpse. Given the enormous sensitivity of this writer of intelligence, one wonders what it is that leaves her incapable of producing a single work where a suceessful gay relationship is portrayed. In this book, the violence against the character Ivo isn't even necessary and seems only included to tidy things up so that the smuggly triumphant Tim and Ivo's sister can have their straight happy-ever-after. Sorry, but this book is little more than old prejudices romantically repackaged, fit only for straight readers thinking themselves liberal - just so long as the gay guy ends up dead. Again.

Some Books Are Too Short, 25 Feb 2004
After reading the very first chapter, I knew i was going to love this book. I was mesmersised by the first chapter, and already felt so involved in the story that it was unbelieveable. I've long been aware of Rendell's genius, but this was a shock even for me.

The story actually moves pretty slowly, but the suspense and tension is just unbearable. You know very well that cataclysmic events are going to occur, but of how and when you know nothing. The sense of wonderment you feel at Rendell (in any of her incarnations) is simply awe-inspiring. You read and read and read, completely unable to tear your eyes from the story, even though its moving with a slow pace. Its thrilling, suspenseful and beautifully tense. And I loved it.

The plot is simple - a telling of how a gay love-affair leads to the chill Pacific north, and fromt hence to murder - but very strong. There are good, strong, simple, sensible, realistic twists. They turn the story once or twice, adding just the right amoung of freshness and surprise.

The characters are superbly well drawn and believeable. and quite likeable, despite their flaws. The completely unsettling thing about Rendell's books are the fact that, in this case at least, the people seem quite, quite normal. Tim is just a normal young man, struggling with his identity and sexuality, experiencing the world for what it really is. He's nothing special. Has no psychological abnormalities, is not in any damaged And yet he is driven to murder. This novel is a bravura display of how circumstances can drive people to commit horrible deeds. Quite sane, normal people, slowly taken hold of.

This is a wonderful book. A masterpiece. The writing is just first class, cold, icy, gripping, and the descriptions of the places in which this novel are set are simply stunning. I have never been to Alaska (in particular) but through her descriptions i found myself transported there. And now, my window to it is closed, I want to visit it. It's a desire that should pass in a few days, but it's a powerful thing to feel simply after reading a book. No Night is Too Long is a dark, icy wasteland of a novel; an erotic and disturbing slice of Rendell's dangeorus world.

I would reccomend this to everyone. I have in the past held of reading Barbara Vine, because i assumed that they would be something very different. So different as to need publishing under a different name. My, though, was I wrong. After all, a Rendell by any other name is still a Rendell. These books still contain the intensity of subtle plot, great characters, good twists, and all the things I expect from Rendell. It has been months since i've read anything new by her, and now i have discovered this new rich casket of wonders, my future in reading looks very bright indeed.

The best book I've ever read..., 07 Feb 2003
I usually stick to one particular genre but after last years new years resolution to read a wider range I encountered this brilliant book, and what a great thing too.
The book honestly is the best book I've ever read. It is fantastically written and is a credit to Ruth Rendell (Barbara Vine).
The story is about Tim and his love life as he ventures from his love for a university student to a professor and finds his sexuality. However, the true love is across the Atlantic living in canada.

The story is gripping and I didn't want to put it down. I can not describe how fantastic this book was. I'd recommend it to anyone. The only bad point to the book is that I knew I'd reach the end.

Comic but chilling underrated Edwardian masterpiece, 19 Apr 2001
When Ingeborg Bullivant, dutiful daughter of the overbearing Bishop of Redchester, finds herself surprisingly at liberty in London with seven guineas to spend after some dental work proves to be more straightforward than expected, an audacious idea enters her head: to spend the money on a 'Dent's Excursion' to the Continent. This act of rebellion proves to be straightforward enough to carry out - but turns out to have unforeseen consequences, with Ingeborg ending up the wife of a pastor in an isolated German village.

In this stunning novel, first published in 1914, Elizabeth von Arnim describes Ingeborg's adventures: her naive, optimistic and ever dutiful attempts to make a success of her new life and subsequent dramatic 'elopement' to Italy.

Like all von Arnim's novels, the strongest theme of the book is the helplessness of women in a world where men have the power, and it is this that gives the book its devastatingly macabre undertones, as we see the helpless Ingeborg attempting to make sense of situations she does not understand. Von Armin's view of human motivation is a distinctive one, strangely passive and yet wholly convincing, as we see how actions are governed by everything from religious belief to the euphoria at being finally free from the toothache.

It is this incongruity that provides some of the humour of the novel. But von Arnim's characters are also richly comic: the pompous pastor, obsessed with his scientific studies into manure and pigs, the affected, egotistical artist (reputedly partly based on von Arnim's lover H.G.Wells), and of course the villagers Ingeborg encounters. Culture clashes, and Ingeborg's bewilderment at the rigid but never explained customs of her new neighbours, lead to some deliciously humorous scenes, always described with a perceptiveness and lightness of touch which make them truly memorable.

In the end it is the book's ability to be as genuinely funny as it is macabre that makes it stand out as a masterpiece; the final scene in the book is one which will raise the hairs on the back of the reader's neck and make it live on in the memory a long time.

Couldn't put it down!, 08 Sep 2004
I have read a number of Penny Vincenzi novels before and have always enjoyed them, however "Almost a Crime" really surpasses the rest. From the first chapter you find yourself turning the pages almost compulsively, and it is so difficult to put down that I ended up bringing it everywhere with me, just to snatch a few minutes reading wherever I could! A truly gripping read.

A Delightful Read, 23 Oct 2002
This story is about this perfect couple, Octavia and Tom Flemming who have a marriage made in heaven. Society looks up to this attractive and golden couple; in fact everyone does. Well heeled they both are and in prominent positions to boot.But that's until the cookie crumbles and Tom begins to have a torrid and steamy affair, putting his wife through so much embarassment, sickness and paranoia, she can hardly bear to leave the house. And look who he is having the affair with? There is betrayal amongst friends and this obviously affects the couple's professional lives interferring with their wealthy status . This book is a stunner with its variety of characters.....especially the ladies....some plain though interesting all the same, while others are attractive and rather hoity toity. The big question however is will this marriaage between this golden couple survive? Another good one from Penny Vincenzi....go for it. You love it and won't be satisfied until you've found out whodunnit.

a good plot but a slapdash end, 12 Feb 2002
The plot and the characters are really interesting but I was very disapointed by the end. I had the feeling the author wanted to be done with her book as she clearly not allowed her characters to explain themselves and resolve their issues (especially work/family time).

A fantastic unputtdownable experience!, 23 Dec 2000
This novel conveys the ultimate power marriage, its positive impact on the individuals' businesses and social life, and the intrusion into family quality time. It was an excellent portrayal of this power marriage and working parents' family life as well as conveying the ultimate betrayal in a marriage.

However, the beauty of the thrill of this novel which made me read and read as I couldn't put it down was the integration of the other characters. I was particularly fascinated by the Muirhead family, and Louise and her mother Anna. They were all very strong and interesting characters who introduced fascinating sub plots to the main drama.

I have been a big fan of Penny Vincenzi for a couple of years, and this novel is definitely one of my favourites as it covered such a lot of themes which did not cliche but enhanced the plot and characters.

A very enjoyable read!

Enthralling!, 01 Nov 2000
I found it absolutely impossible to put this book down. I am a devoute book worm, but this came everywhere with me. You just have to keep reading to find out what happens next. The characters are varied and any one would identifiy with at lest one of them. I have loaned the book to 3 other people and they felt the same, this is the most enthralling book we have read for a long while! When's the next one?

Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the best books ever written!, 09 Apr 1997
This audio-cassette version of Slaughterhouse-Five is a great way to enjoy Vonnegut at his best. Follow Billy Pilgrim through a hillarious and moving journey through life that has more relevence to real life than any other character in modern American fiction. Vonnegut's influence is wide and well respected mostly due to Slaughterhouse-Five. A must buy!

Least enjoyable of all Ruth Rendall's books, 15 Jul 2008
Having enjoyed pretty much all of Barbara Vine's other books, this was a big disappointment - too 'tricksy' and self-consciously clever and I really didn't care what happened to any of the odious characters!

Ruth Rendell prejudiced? Absurd!, 28 Feb 2007
I felt I had to repudiate the ridiculous assertions made in the previous review. Ruth Rendell has been an active gay rights campaigner for decades; she frequently deals with issues of sexuality in her books and it is always with great sympathy and sensitivity. The reviewer below claims there are no happy gay couples in the Rendell / Vine books (in fact, there is a such a couple in Asta's Book)- well, are there many happy straight couples in her books either? Considering the dark tone and subject matter of her fiction, would anyone expect to find them populated with happy couples of either preference? Besides, Rendell clearly wants to highlight some of the injustices that gay men and women face through her work, and an endless parade of blissful relationships would hardly serve the purpose. I suggest the reviewer vents his anger upon a source of genuine homophobia, instead of directing his paranoid accusations against a writer who has shown nothing but sympathy for the gay community throughout her career.


Beautiful but prejudiced, 14 Feb 2007
As a gay man I was reluctant to read this book, despite being a deeply appreciative reader of Rendell/Vine for years. The story is beautifully told, as we would expect from Rendell, but once again a familar theme of latent homophobia builds and builds throughout her text. Has anyone else, I wonder, ever noticed how Rendell/Vine's gay men always fall into two categories and end up meeting two fates? The happy ones get killed, often horribly: Desmond in 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy' beaten to death, Peter, 'King Solomon's Carpet' riddled with AIDS, Ivo, in this work, stabbed to death very conveniently for the suddenly-heterosexual hero. We'll gloss over the hinted-at but similarlly violently truncated relationship between Henry Nanther and Richard Hamillton (train disaster doing for Richard) in 'The Blood Doctor'. The unhappy ones get magically, and implausibly, straightened out: Gerald, 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy', for example, and here again, the character Tim, who ends up practically making love to his new-found heterosexual lover over Ivo's corpse. Given the enormous sensitivity of this writer of intelligence, one wonders what it is that leaves her incapable of producing a single work where a suceessful gay relationship is portrayed. In this book, the violence against the character Ivo isn't even necessary and seems only included to tidy things up so that the smuggly triumphant Tim and Ivo's sister can have their straight happy-ever-after. Sorry, but this book is little more than old prejudices romantically repackaged, fit only for straight readers thinking themselves liberal - just so long as the gay guy ends up dead. Again.

Some Books Are Too Short, 25 Feb 2004
After reading the very first chapter, I knew i was going to love this book. I was mesmersised by the first chapter, and already felt so involved in the story that it was unbelieveable. I've long been aware of Rendell's genius, but this was a shock even for me.

The story actually moves pretty slowly, but the suspense and tension is just unbearable. You know very well that cataclysmic events are going to occur, but of how and when you know nothing. The sense of wonderment you feel at Rendell (in any of her incarnations) is simply awe-inspiring. You read and read and read, completely unable to tear your eyes from the story, even though its moving with a slow pace. Its thrilling, suspenseful and beautifully tense. And I loved it.

The plot is simple - a telling of how a gay love-affair leads to the chill Pacific north, and fromt hence to murder - but very strong. There are good, strong, simple, sensible, realistic twists. They turn the story once or twice, adding just the right amoung of freshness and surprise.

The characters are superbly well drawn and believeable. and quite likeable, despite their flaws. The completely unsettling thing about Rendell's books are the fact that, in this case at least, the people seem quite, quite normal. Tim is just a normal young man, struggling with his identity and sexuality, experiencing the world for what it really is. He's nothing special. Has no psychological abnormalities, is not in any damaged And yet he is driven to murder. This novel is a bravura display of how circumstances can drive people to commit horrible deeds. Quite sane, normal people, slowly taken hold of.

This is a wonderful book. A masterpiece. The writing is just first class, cold, icy, gripping, and the descriptions of the places in which this novel are set are simply stunning. I have never been to Alaska (in particular) but through her descriptions i found myself transported there. And now, my window to it is closed, I want to visit it. It's a desire that should pass in a few days, but it's a powerful thing to feel simply after reading a book. No Night is Too Long is a dark, icy wasteland of a novel; an erotic and disturbing slice of Rendell's dangeorus world.

I would reccomend this to everyone. I have in the past held of reading Barbara Vine, because i assumed that they would be something very different. So different as to need publishing under a different name. My, though, was I wrong. After all, a Rendell by any other name is still a Rendell. These books still contain the intensity of subtle plot, great characters, good twists, and all the things I expect from Rendell. It has been months since i've read anything new by her, and now i have discovered this new rich casket of wonders, my future in reading looks very bright indeed.

The best book I've ever read..., 07 Feb 2003
I usually stick to one particular genre but after last years new years resolution to read a wider range I encountered this brilliant book, and what a great thing too.
The book honestly is the best book I've ever read. It is fantastically written and is a credit to Ruth Rendell (Barbara Vine).
The story is about Tim and his love life as he ventures from his love for a university student to a professor and finds his sexuality. However, the true love is across the Atlantic living in canada.

The story is gripping and I didn't want to put it down. I can not describe how fantastic this book was. I'd recommend it to anyone. The only bad point to the book is that I knew I'd reach the end.

Comic but chilling underrated Edwardian masterpiece, 19 Apr 2001
When Ingeborg Bullivant, dutiful daughter of the overbearing Bishop of Redchester, finds herself surprisingly at liberty in London with seven guineas to spend after some dental work proves to be more straightforward than expected, an audacious idea enters her head: to spend the money on a 'Dent's Excursion' to the Continent. This act of rebellion proves to be straightforward enough to carry out - but turns out to have unforeseen consequences, with Ingeborg ending up the wife of a pastor in an isolated German village.

In this stunning novel, first published in 1914, Elizabeth von Arnim describes Ingeborg's adventures: her naive, optimistic and ever dutiful attempts to make a success of her new life and subsequent dramatic 'elopement' to Italy.

Like all von Arnim's novels, the strongest theme of the book is the helplessness of women in a world where men have the power, and it is this that gives the book its devastatingly macabre undertones, as we see the helpless Ingeborg attempting to make sense of situations she does not understand. Von Armin's view of human motivation is a distinctive one, strangely passive and yet wholly convincing, as we see how actions are governed by everything from religious belief to the euphoria at being finally free from the toothache.

It is this incongruity that provides some of the humour of the novel. But von Arnim's characters are also richly comic: the pompous pastor, obsessed with his scientific studies into manure and pigs, the affected, egotistical artist (reputedly partly based on von Arnim's lover H.G.Wells), and of course the villagers Ingeborg encounters. Culture clashes, and Ingeborg's bewilderment at the rigid but never explained customs of her new neighbours, lead to some deliciously humorous scenes, always described with a perceptiveness and lightness of touch which make them truly memorable.

In the end it is the book's ability to be as genuinely funny as it is macabre that makes it stand out as a masterpiece; the final scene in the book is one which will raise the hairs on the back of the reader's neck and make it live on in the memory a long time.

Couldn't put it down!, 08 Sep 2004
I have read a number of Penny Vincenzi novels before and have always enjoyed them, however "Almost a Crime" really surpasses the rest. From the first chapter you find yourself turning the pages almost compulsively, and it is so difficult to put down that I ended up bringing it everywhere with me, just to snatch a few minutes reading wherever I could! A truly gripping read.

A Delightful Read, 23 Oct 2002
This story is about this perfect couple, Octavia and Tom Flemming who have a marriage made in heaven. Society looks up to this attractive and golden couple; in fact everyone does. Well heeled they both are and in prominent positions to boot.But that's until the cookie crumbles and Tom begins to have a torrid and steamy affair, putting his wife through so much embarassment, sickness and paranoia, she can hardly bear to leave the house. And look who he is having the affair with? There is betrayal amongst friends and this obviously affects the couple's professional lives interferring with their wealthy status . This book is a stunner with its variety of characters.....especially the ladies....some plain though interesting all the same, while others are attractive and rather hoity toity. The big question however is will this marriaage between this golden couple survive? Another good one from Penny Vincenzi....go for it. You love it and won't be satisfied until you've found out whodunnit.

a good plot but a slapdash end, 12 Feb 2002
The plot and the characters are really interesting but I was very disapointed by the end. I had the feeling the author wanted to be done with her book as she clearly not allowed her characters to explain themselves and resolve their issues (especially work/family time).

A fantastic unputtdownable experience!, 23 Dec 2000
This novel conveys the ultimate power marriage, its positive impact on the individuals' businesses and social life, and the intrusion into family quality time. It was an excellent portrayal of this power marriage and working parents' family life as well as conveying the ultimate betrayal in a marriage.

However, the beauty of the thrill of this novel which made me read and read as I couldn't put it down was the integration of the other characters. I was particularly fascinated by the Muirhead family, and Louise and her mother Anna. They were all very strong and interesting characters who introduced fascinating sub plots to the main drama.

I have been a big fan of Penny Vincenzi for a couple of years, and this novel is definitely one of my favourites as it covered such a lot of themes which did not cliche but enhanced the plot and characters.

A very enjoyable read!

Enthralling!, 01 Nov 2000
I found it absolutely impossible to put this book down. I am a devoute book worm, but this came everywhere with me. You just have to keep reading to find out what happens next. The characters are varied and any one would identifiy with at lest one of them. I have loaned the book to 3 other people and they felt the same, this is the most enthralling book we have read for a long while! When's the next one?

Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the best books ever written!, 09 Apr 1997
This audio-cassette version of Slaughterhouse-Five is a great way to enjoy Vonnegut at his best. Follow Billy Pilgrim through a hillarious and moving journey through life that has more relevence to real life than any other character in modern American fiction. Vonnegut's influence is wide and well respected mostly due to Slaughterhouse-Five. A must buy!

whopping read, absorbing but annoying, 09 Sep 2008
In the end I decided the book was rather frantic - one minute you were being asked to accept something was exciting and wonderful and then you had to discard that notion. Any sequel might again be a farce like run of misunderstandings and secrets - however, it is absorbing and does keep you riveted, just perhaps not very worthwhile!

A Right Riveting Read!, 02 Apr 2008
This was my first Penny Vincenzi book and it certainly won't be my last. I was a bit worried that the politics side of it would be too heavy going for me (not being very knowledgeable in this department), but she actually made it easy to understand the goings on within 'The House', and actually quite enjoyable.
Although it was quite easy to work out who the parents of Kate were going to be, it was a good storyline and really well written.
Definitely recommended and my next job is to read the reviews to determine my next Penny Vincenzi book!

Fairly predictable but still a good read, 11 Jan 2008
The story revolves around three traveling students who become good friends and happen to quite unrealistically meet up later on in life. One of them abandons a baby at the airport after their travels when they were young and the reader is not told until later on in the book which one it is. Even though there are various points in each characters story to make you think it could be them, I felt it was quite obvious who it was from quite early on. I also guessed other twists in the story before they happened but I won't give too much away by saying what they were.
I still quite enjoyed the story but it is nothing out of the ordinary.

Thinking of abandoning reading it!, 06 Aug 2007
I have read all Penny Vincenzi's previous books and have been 'saving up' this one as a special treat! I'm about 100 pages in and, although I have only ever abandoned reading two other books in my life, I'm seriously wondering whether to waste any more of my time on this one. I am fed up of reading about her personal views of the terrible state of the NHS and the government - I'm not the biggest fan of either but really don't want it constantly being rammed down my throat when I'm trying to escape from the real world by reading a novel.

Really disappointed by this one - hope she returns to her usual form for the next one!

SHEER ABANDON, 23 Jun 2007
I have read all Penny's books and loved them all but this one. Normally her books leave me not wanting to put them down but unfurtunately I found this hard to pick up.I think it was plainly obvious from the onset who the father was and found the book quite boring. About to start on her latest novel hope she is back on form.

Least enjoyable of all Ruth Rendall's books, 15 Jul 2008
Having enjoyed pretty much all of Barbara Vine's other books, this was a big disappointment - too 'tricksy' and self-consciously clever and I really didn't care what happened to any of the odious characters!

Ruth Rendell prejudiced? Absurd!, 28 Feb 2007
I felt I had to repudiate the ridiculous assertions made in the previous review. Ruth Rendell has been an active gay rights campaigner for decades; she frequently deals with issues of sexuality in her books and it is always with great sympathy and sensitivity. The reviewer below claims there are no happy gay couples in the Rendell / Vine books (in fact, there is a such a couple in Asta's Book)- well, are there many happy straight couples in her books either? Considering the dark tone and subject matter of her fiction, would anyone expect to find them populated with happy couples of either preference? Besides, Rendell clearly wants to highlight some of the injustices that gay men and women face through her work, and an endless parade of blissful relationships would hardly serve the purpose. I suggest the reviewer vents his anger upon a source of genuine homophobia, instead of directing his paranoid accusations against a writer who has shown nothing but sympathy for the gay community throughout her career.


Beautiful but prejudiced, 14 Feb 2007
As a gay man I was reluctant to read this book, despite being a deeply appreciative reader of Rendell/Vine for years. The story is beautifully told, as we would expect from Rendell, but once again a familar theme of latent homophobia builds and builds throughout her text. Has anyone else, I wonder, ever noticed how Rendell/Vine's gay men always fall into two categories and end up meeting two fates? The happy ones get killed, often horribly: Desmond in 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy' beaten to death, Peter, 'King Solomon's Carpet' riddled with AIDS, Ivo, in this work, stabbed to death very conveniently for the suddenly-heterosexual hero. We'll gloss over the hinted-at but similarlly violently truncated relationship between Henry Nanther and Richard Hamillton (train disaster doing for Richard) in 'The Blood Doctor'. The unhappy ones get magically, and implausibly, straightened out: Gerald, 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy', for example, and here again, the character Tim, who ends up practically making love to his new-found heterosexual lover over Ivo's corpse. Given the enormous sensitivity of this writer of intelligence, one wonders what it is that leaves her incapable of producing a single work where a suceessful gay relationship is portrayed. In this book, the violence against the character Ivo isn't even necessary and seems only included to tidy things up so that the smuggly triumphant Tim and Ivo's sister can have their straight happy-ever-after. Sorry, but this book is little more than old prejudices romantically repackaged, fit only for straight readers thinking themselves liberal - just so long as the gay guy ends up dead. Again.

Some Books Are Too Short, 25 Feb 2004
After reading the very first chapter, I knew i was going to love this book. I was mesmersised by the first chapter, and already felt so involved in the story that it was unbelieveable. I've long been aware of Rendell's genius, but this was a shock even for me.

The story actually moves pretty slowly, but the suspense and tension is just unbearable. You know very well that cataclysmic events are going to occur, but of how and when you know nothing. The sense of wonderment you feel at Rendell (in any of her incarnations) is simply awe-inspiring. You read and read and read, completely unable to tear your eyes from the story, even though its moving with a slow pace. Its thrilling, suspenseful and beautifully tense. And I loved it.

The plot is simple - a telling of how a gay love-affair leads to the chill Pacific north, and fromt hence to murder - but very strong. There are good, strong, simple, sensible, realistic twists. They turn the story once or twice, adding just the right amoung of freshness and surprise.

The characters are superbly well drawn and believeable. and quite likeable, despite their flaws. The completely unsettling thing about Rendell's books are the fact that, in this case at least, the people seem quite, quite normal. Tim is just a normal young man, struggling with his identity and sexuality, experiencing the world for what it really is. He's nothing special. Has no psychological abnormalities, is not in any damaged And yet he is driven to murder. This novel is a bravura display of how circumstances can drive people to commit horrible deeds. Quite sane, normal people, slowly taken hold of.

This is a wonderful book. A masterpiece. The writing is just first class, cold, icy, gripping, and the descriptions of the places in which this novel are set are simply stunning. I have never been to Alaska (in particular) but through her descriptions i found myself transported there. And now, my window to it is closed, I want to visit it. It's a desire that should pass in a few days, but it's a powerful thing to feel simply after reading a book. No Night is Too Long is a dark, icy wasteland of a novel; an erotic and disturbing slice of Rendell's dangeorus world.

I would reccomend this to everyone. I have in the past held of reading Barbara Vine, because i assumed that they would be something very different. So different as to need publishing under a different name. My, though, was I wrong. After all, a Rendell by any other name is still a Rendell. These books still contain the intensity of subtle plot, great characters, good twists, and all the things I expect from Rendell. It has been months since i've read anything new by her, and now i have discovered this new rich casket of wonders, my future in reading looks very bright indeed.

The best book I've ever read..., 07 Feb 2003
I usually stick to one particular genre but after last years new years resolution to read a wider range I encountered this brilliant book, and what a great thing too.
The book honestly is the best book I've ever read. It is fantastically written and is a credit to Ruth Rendell (Barbara Vine).
The story is about Tim and his love life as he ventures from his love for a university student to a professor and finds his sexuality. However, the true love is across the Atlantic living in canada.

The story is gripping and I didn't want to put it down. I can not describe how fantastic this book was. I'd recommend it to anyone. The only bad point to the book is that I knew I'd reach the end.

Comic but chilling underrated Edwardian masterpiece, 19 Apr 2001
When Ingeborg Bullivant, dutiful daughter of the overbearing Bishop of Redchester, finds herself surprisingly at liberty in London with seven guineas to spend after some dental work proves to be more straightforward than expected, an audacious idea enters her head: to spend the money on a 'Dent's Excursion' to the Continent. This act of rebellion proves to be straightforward enough to carry out - but turns out to have unforeseen consequences, with Ingeborg ending up the wife of a pastor in an isolated German village.

In this stunning novel, first published in 1914, Elizabeth von Arnim describes Ingeborg's adventures: her naive, optimistic and ever dutiful attempts to make a success of her new life and subsequent dramatic 'elopement' to Italy.

Like all von Arnim's novels, the strongest theme of the book is the helplessness of women in a world where men have the power, and it is this that gives the book its devastatingly macabre undertones, as we see the helpless Ingeborg attempting to make sense of situations she does not understand. Von Armin's view of human motivation is a distinctive one, strangely passive and yet wholly convincing, as we see how actions are governed by everything from religious belief to the euphoria at being finally free from the toothache.

It is this incongruity that provides some of the humour of the novel. But von Arnim's characters are also richly comic: the pompous pastor, obsessed with his scientific studies into manure and pigs, the affected, egotistical artist (reputedly partly based on von Arnim's lover H.G.Wells), and of course the villagers Ingeborg encounters. Culture clashes, and Ingeborg's bewilderment at the rigid but never explained customs of her new neighbours, lead to some deliciously humorous scenes, always described with a perceptiveness and lightness of touch which make them truly memorable.

In the end it is the book's ability to be as genuinely funny as it is macabre that makes it stand out as a masterpiece; the final scene in the book is one which will raise the hairs on the back of the reader's neck and make it live on in the memory a long time.

Couldn't put it down!, 08 Sep 2004
I have read a number of Penny Vincenzi novels before and have always enjoyed them, however "Almost a Crime" really surpasses the rest. From the first chapter you find yourself turning the pages almost compulsively, and it is so difficult to put down that I ended up bringing it everywhere with me, just to snatch a few minutes reading wherever I could! A truly gripping read.

A Delightful Read, 23 Oct 2002
This story is about this perfect couple, Octavia and Tom Flemming who have a marriage made in heaven. Society looks up to this attractive and golden couple; in fact everyone does. Well heeled they both are and in prominent positions to boot.But that's until the cookie crumbles and Tom begins to have a torrid and steamy affair, putting his wife through so much embarassment, sickness and paranoia, she can hardly bear to leave the house. And look who he is having the affair with? There is betrayal amongst friends and this obviously affects the couple's professional lives interferring with their wealthy status . This book is a stunner with its variety of characters.....especially the ladies....some plain though interesting all the same, while others are attractive and rather hoity toity. The big question however is will this marriaage between this golden couple survive? Another good one from Penny Vincenzi....go for it. You love it and won't be satisfied until you've found out whodunnit.

a good plot but a slapdash end, 12 Feb 2002
The plot and the characters are really interesting but I was very disapointed by the end. I had the feeling the author wanted to be done with her book as she clearly not allowed her characters to explain themselves and resolve their issues (especially work/family time).

A fantastic unputtdownable experience!, 23 Dec 2000
This novel conveys the ultimate power marriage, its positive impact on the individuals' businesses and social life, and the intrusion into family quality time. It was an excellent portrayal of this power marriage and working parents' family life as well as conveying the ultimate betrayal in a marriage.

However, the beauty of the thrill of this novel which made me read and read as I couldn't put it down was the integration of the other characters. I was particularly fascinated by the Muirhead family, and Louise and her mother Anna. They were all very strong and interesting characters who introduced fascinating sub plots to the main drama.

I have been a big fan of Penny Vincenzi for a couple of years, and this novel is definitely one of my favourites as it covered such a lot of themes which did not cliche but enhanced the plot and characters.

A very enjoyable read!

Enthralling!, 01 Nov 2000
I found it absolutely impossible to put this book down. I am a devoute book worm, but this came everywhere with me. You just have to keep reading to find out what happens next. The characters are varied and any one would identifiy with at lest one of them. I have loaned the book to 3 other people and they felt the same, this is the most enthralling book we have read for a long while! When's the next one?

Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the best books ever written!, 09 Apr 1997
This audio-cassette version of Slaughterhouse-Five is a great way to enjoy Vonnegut at his best. Follow Billy Pilgrim through a hillarious and moving journey through life that has more relevence to real life than any other character in modern American fiction. Vonnegut's influence is wide and well respected mostly due to Slaughterhouse-Five. A must buy!

whopping read, absorbing but annoying, 09 Sep 2008
In the end I decided the book was rather frantic - one minute you were being asked to accept something was exciting and wonderful and then you had to discard that notion. Any sequel might again be a farce like run of misunderstandings and secrets - however, it is absorbing and does keep you riveted, just perhaps not very worthwhile!

A Right Riveting Read!, 02 Apr 2008
This was my first Penny Vincenzi book and it certainly won't be my last. I was a bit worried that the politics side of it would be too heavy going for me (not being very knowledgeable in this department), but she actually made it easy to understand the goings on within 'The House', and actually quite enjoyable.
Although it was quite easy to work out who the parents of Kate were going to be, it was a good storyline and really well written.
Definitely recommended and my next job is to read the reviews to determine my next Penny Vincenzi book!

Fairly predictable but still a good read, 11 Jan 2008
The story revolves around three traveling students who become good friends and happen to quite unrealistically meet up later on in life. One of them abandons a baby at the airport after their travels when they were young and the reader is not told until later on in the book which one it is. Even though there are various points in each characters story to make you think it could be them, I felt it was quite obvious who it was from quite early on. I also guessed other twists in the story before they happened but I won't give too much away by saying what they were.
I still quite enjoyed the story but it is nothing out of the ordinary.

Thinking of abandoning reading it!, 06 Aug 2007
I have read all Penny Vincenzi's previous books and have been 'saving up' this one as a special treat! I'm about 100 pages in and, although I have only ever abandoned reading two other books in my life, I'm seriously wondering whether to waste any more of my time on this one. I am fed up of reading about her personal views of the terrible state of the NHS and the government - I'm not the biggest fan of either but really don't want it constantly being rammed down my throat when I'm trying to escape from the real world by reading a novel.

Really disappointed by this one - hope she returns to her usual form for the next one!

SHEER ABANDON, 23 Jun 2007
I have read all Penny's books and loved them all but this one. Normally her books leave me not wanting to put them down but unfurtunately I found this hard to pick up.I think it was plainly obvious from the onset who the father was and found the book quite boring. About to start on her latest novel hope she is back on form.

Vine/Rendell at her very best, 02 Aug 2007
Masterfully written, this is the story of a group of young students who gather to spend a long, blazing hot summer vacation at Wyvis Hall in Suffolk, the recently inherited house of medical student Adam Verne-Smith. This hypnotic tale is told mostly through flashback, the threads pulling together gradually and inexorably, weaving the past and present towards a stunning climax. Menace is present from the opening line to the startling denouement. Vine has created a living, breathing world as only she can; this tale of greed and frailty, disaster and triumph places human nature under the microscope and while none of the characters is particularly likeable you are drawn into their worlds as the tale unfolds. The story will imprint itself on your mind long after you have read the final page. One of my Desert Island must haves.

A banal plot, 01 Feb 2007
During the summer of 1976, Adam Verne-Smith inherits a big old country house in Suffolk, Wyvis Hall. He collects around him a group of shady and careless young people: Rufus, Shiva, Vivien and Zosie. With carelessness of youth they plunder, steal, pawn, scavenge and sell the family heirlooms. In 1986 the bodies of a young woman and child are discovered in a strange animal cemetery by the owners of Wyvis Hall. Adam, Rufus and the others have reasons to fear as the truth about what happened at Wyvis Hall in 1976 slowly comes to light.
The characters are not particularly well drawn, the plot a succession of banal events. Although Mrs Vine is interested in borderline personalities, the psychology of her characters in this novel can be described as uninteresting at best.
The only pleasure about the novel is the very good way William Gaminara reads it for Chivers Audiobooks.

Ten Years After..., 01 Jul 2006
A Fatal Inversion is among Barbara Vine's most creepy and atmospheric novels. From the start of the first chapter, death casts its ominous shadow over the entire novel, when Adam, Rufus and Shiva, now three grown men in their thirties are forced to confront something terrible and tragic that took place ten years previously, when they lived together in a commune at Wyvis Hall in Suffolk in the sweltering summer of 1976.

The group of young people who come to inhabit `Ecalpemos', a Georgian mansion, inherited from his Great Uncle by 19-year-old Adam Verne-Smith, are by no means likeable characters - hedonistic, selfish, arrogant, manipulative, weak - yet you become intensely caught up in their world and the landscape of their individual psychologies. Then the wheel of fate is set in motion with the arrival of the seemingly mysterious, disturbed and child-like Zosie. Barbara Vine writes about dysfunctional individuals in a unique way that imbues the mundane with chilling significance.

As ever, with Barbara Vine, buildings and landscape take on a dark and sinister aspect, even as the hot summer sun of '76 beats down, and Vine's Suffolk countryside is at times as menacing and uncanny as that of M.R. James. More than just a crime and mystery novel, this book makes you think about human conscience, lack of it, deception, innocence, guilt, and the hard truth that in life, the amoral do not always get their just deserts.


Absolutely enthralling...., 19 Oct 2003
I had already read a couple of Barbara Vine novels before reading this one, and although I thought the others were good, for me this is the masterpiece: enthralling and unputdownable. The plot is totally original and as you put the pieces together you realise how well crafted the storyline is. The ending is fantastic. A must read.

Once again a great novel!, 06 Jan 2001
This is another of Rendell/Vine's classic books. It is so much more than a whodunit or a whyduunit; the wide variety of characters is very memorable and the reader learns a lot about each of their torment. This is a must-read. And the final twist is absolutely incredible!

It took Vonnegut more than 20 years to put his Dresden experiences into words. He explained, "there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again." Slaughterhouse Five is a powerful novel incorporating a number of genres. Only those who have fought in wars can say whether it represents the experience well. However, what the novel does do is invite the reader to look at the absurdity of war. Human versus human, hedonist politicians pressing buttons and ordering millions to their deaths all for ideologies many cannot even comprehend. Flicking between the US, 1940's Germany and Tralfamadore, Vonnegut's semi- autobiographical protagonist Billy Pilgrim finds himself very lost. One minute he is being viewed as a specimen in a Tralfamadorian Zoo, the next he is wandering a post-apocalyptic city looking for corpses. Slaughterhouse Five-Or The Children's Crusade A Duty-Dance with Death is a remarkable blend of black humour, irony, the truth and the absurd. The author regards his work a "failure", millions of readers do not. Released the same time bombs were falling on South East Asia, this title caused controversy and awakening. Essential reading for all. So it goes. --Jon Smith

Least enjoyable of all Ruth Rendall's books, 15 Jul 2008
Having enjoyed pretty much all of Barbara Vine's other books, this was a big disappointment - too 'tricksy' and self-consciously clever and I really didn't care what happened to any of the odious characters!

Ruth Rendell prejudiced? Absurd!, 28 Feb 2007
I felt I had to repudiate the ridiculous assertions made in the previous review. Ruth Rendell has been an active gay rights campaigner for decades; she frequently deals with issues of sexuality in her books and it is always with great sympathy and sensitivity. The reviewer below claims there are no happy gay couples in the Rendell / Vine books (in fact, there is a such a couple in Asta's Book)- well, are there many happy straight couples in her books either? Considering the dark tone and subject matter of her fiction, would anyone expect to find them populated with happy couples of either preference? Besides, Rendell clearly wants to highlight some of the injustices that gay men and women face through her work, and an endless parade of blissful relationships would hardly serve the purpose. I suggest the reviewer vents his anger upon a source of genuine homophobia, instead of directing his paranoid accusations against a writer who has shown nothing but sympathy for the gay community throughout her career.


Beautiful but prejudiced, 14 Feb 2007
As a gay man I was reluctant to read this book, despite being a deeply appreciative reader of Rendell/Vine for years. The story is beautifully told, as we would expect from Rendell, but once again a familar theme of latent homophobia builds and builds throughout her text. Has anyone else, I wonder, ever noticed how Rendell/Vine's gay men always fall into two categories and end up meeting two fates? The happy ones get killed, often horribly: Desmond in 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy' beaten to death, Peter, 'King Solomon's Carpet' riddled with AIDS, Ivo, in this work, stabbed to death very conveniently for the suddenly-heterosexual hero. We'll gloss over the hinted-at but similarlly violently truncated relationship between Henry Nanther and Richard Hamillton (train disaster doing for Richard) in 'The Blood Doctor'. The unhappy ones get magically, and implausibly, straightened out: Gerald, 'The Chimney Sweeper's Boy', for example, and here again, the character Tim, who ends up practically making love to his new-found heterosexual lover over Ivo's corpse. Given the enormous sensitivity of this writer of intelligence, one wonders what it is that leaves her incapable of producing a single work where a suceessful gay relationship is portrayed. In this book, the violence against the character Ivo isn't even necessary and seems only included to tidy things up so that the smuggly triumphant Tim and Ivo's sister can have their straight happy-ever-after. Sorry, but this book is little more than old prejudices romantically repackaged, fit only for straight readers thinking themselves liberal - just so long as the gay guy ends up dead. Again.

Some Books Are Too Short, 25 Feb 2004
After reading the very first chapter, I knew i was going to love this book. I was mesmersised by the first chapter, and already felt so involved in the story that it was unbelieveable. I've long been aware of Rendell's genius, but this was a shock even for me.

The story actually moves pretty slowly, but the suspense and tension is just unbearable. You know very well that cataclysmic events are going to occur, but of how and when you know nothing. The sense of wonderment you feel at Rendell (in any of her incarnations) is simply awe-inspiring. You read and read and read, completely unable to tear your eyes from the story, even though its moving with a slow pace. Its thrilling, suspenseful and beautifully tense. And I loved it.

The plot is simple - a telling of how a gay love-affair leads to the chill Pacific north, and fromt hence to murder - but very strong. There are good, strong, simple, sensible, realistic twists. They turn the story once or twice, adding just the right amoung of freshness and surprise.

The characters are superbly well drawn and believeable. and quite likeable, despite their flaws. The completely unsettling thing about Rendell's books are the fact that, in this case at least, the people seem quite, quite normal. Tim is just a normal young man, struggling with his identity and sexuality, experiencing the world for what it really is. He's nothing special. Has no psychological abnormalities, is not in any damaged And yet he is driven to murder. This novel is a bravura display of how circumstances can drive people to commit horrible deeds. Quite sane, normal people, slowly taken hold of.

This is a wonderful book. A masterpiece. The writing is just first class, cold, icy, gripping, and the descriptions of the places in which this novel are set are simply stunning. I have never been to Alaska (in particular) but through her descriptions i found myself transported there. And now, my window to it is closed, I want to visit it. It's a desire that should pass in a few days, but it's a powerful thing to feel simply after reading a book. No Night is Too Long is a dark, icy wasteland of a novel; an erotic and disturbing slice of Rendell's dangeorus world.

I would reccomend this to everyone. I have in the past held of reading Barbara Vine, because i assumed that they would be something very different. So different as to need publishing under a different name. My, though, was I wrong. After all, a Rendell by any other name is still a Rendell. These books still contain the intensity of subtle plot, great characters, good twists, and all the things I expect from Rendell. It has been months since i've read anything new by her, and now i have discovered this new rich casket of wonders, my future in reading looks very bright indeed.

The best book I've ever read..., 07 Feb 2003
I usually stick to one particular genre but after last years new years resolution to read a wider range I encountered this brilliant book, and what a great thing too.
The book honestly is the best book I've ever read. It is fantastically written and is a credit to Ruth Rendell (Barbara Vine).
The story is about Tim and his love life as he ventures from his love for a university student to a professor and finds his sexuality. However, the true love is across the Atlantic living in canada.

The story is gripping and I didn't want to put it down. I can not describe how fantastic this book was. I'd recommend it to anyone. The only bad point to the book is that I knew I'd reach the end.

Comic but chilling underrated Edwardian masterpiece, 19 Apr 2001
When Ingeborg Bullivant, dutiful daughter of the overbearing Bishop of Redchester, finds herself surprisingly at liberty in London with seven guineas to spend after some dental work proves to be more straightforward than expected, an audacious idea enters her head: to spend the money on a 'Dent's Excursion' to the Continent. This act of rebellion proves to be straightforward enough to carry out - but turns out to have unforeseen consequences, with Ingeborg ending up the wife of a pastor in an isolated German village.

In this stunning novel, first published in 1914, Elizabeth von Arnim describes Ingeborg's adventures: her naive, optimistic and ever dutiful attempts to make a success of her new life and subsequent dramatic 'elopement' to Italy.

Like all von Arnim's novels, the strongest theme of the book is the helplessness of women in a world where men have the power, and it is this that gives the book its devastatingly macabre undertones, as we see the helpless Ingeborg attempting to make sense of situations she does not understand. Von Armin's view of human motivation is a distinctive one, strangely passive and yet wholly convincing, as we see how actions are governed by everything from religious belief to the euphoria at being finally free from the toothache.

It is this incongruity that provides some of the humour of the novel. But von Arnim's characters are also richly comic: the pompous pastor, obsessed with his scientific studies into manure and pigs, the affected, egotistical artist (reputedly partly based on von Arnim's lover H.G.Wells), and of course the villagers Ingeborg encounters. Culture clashes, and Ingeborg's bewilderment at the rigid but never explained customs of her new neighbours, lead to some deliciously humorous scenes, always described with a perceptiveness and lightness of touch which make them truly memorable.

In the end it is the book's ability to be as genuinely funny as it is macabre that makes it stand out as a masterpiece; the final scene in the book is one which will raise the hairs on the back of the reader's neck and make it live on in the memory a long time.

Couldn't put it down!, 08 Sep 2004
I have read a number of Penny Vincenzi novels before and have always enjoyed them, however "Almost a Crime" really surpasses the rest. From the first chapter you find yourself turning the pages almost compulsively, and it is so difficult to put down that I ended up bringing it everywhere with me, just to snatch a few minutes reading wherever I could! A truly gripping read.

A Delightful Read, 23 Oct 2002
This story is about this perfect couple, Octavia and Tom Flemming who have a marriage made in heaven. Society looks up to this attractive and golden couple; in fact everyone does. Well heeled they both are and in prominent positions to boot.But that's until the cookie crumbles and Tom begins to have a torrid and steamy affair, putting his wife through so much embarassment, sickness and paranoia, she can hardly bear to leave the house. And look who he is having the affair with? There is betrayal amongst friends and this obviously affects the couple's professional lives interferring with their wealthy status . This book is a stunner with its variety of characters.....especially the ladies....some plain though interesting all the same, while others are attractive and rather hoity toity. The big question however is will this marriaage between this golden couple survive? Another good one from Penny Vincenzi....go for it. You love it and won't be satisfied until you've found out whodunnit.

a good plot but a slapdash end, 12 Feb 2002
The plot and the characters are really interesting but I was very disapointed by the end. I had the feeling the author wanted to be done with her book as she clearly not allowed her characters to explain themselves and resolve their issues (especially work/family time).

A fantastic unputtdownable experience!, 23 Dec 2000
This novel conveys the ultimate power marriage, its positive impact on the individuals' businesses and social life, and the intrusion into family quality time. It was an excellent portrayal of this power marriage and working parents' family life as well as conveying the ultimate betrayal in a marriage.

However, the beauty of the thrill of this novel which made me read and read as I couldn't put it down was the integration of the other characters. I was particularly fascinated by the Muirhead family, and Louise and her mother Anna. They were all very strong and interesting characters who introduced fascinating sub plots to the main drama.

I have been a big fan of Penny Vincenzi for a couple of years, and this novel is definitely one of my favourites as it covered such a lot of themes which did not cliche but enhanced the plot and characters.

A very enjoyable read!

Enthralling!, 01 Nov 2000
I found it absolutely impossible to put this book down. I am a devoute book worm, but this came everywhere with me. You just have to keep reading to