I read a little crime fiction here and there, mostly there. I actually discovered Ruth Rendell while browsing in the Summit B & N. Picked up this book, started reading it in the store, and was hooked. I venture to say that Ruth Rendell writes literate crime fiction. Amazing that I've never heard of her. She has written dozens of novels. Lives in London. Member of the House of Lords.
A bad man named John Winwood murders his wife and her lover, this during WWII. He cuts off their hands and buries them in a tunnel. Kids used to play in these tunnels but Winwood runs them off for obvious reasons. He sends his son off to live with an aunt. Bad man. Sixty years later the hands, buried in a cookie jar, are dug while house are being built where the tunnels are. This discovery brings back together the kids who used to play there. The novel explores how the past rears its ugly head and affects the present.
The novel is also simply about the elderly, their trials and travails as they grow older. Issues confronted; issues dealt with: the usual like children, grandchildren, and health. As Faulkner says, the past isn't dead; it isn't even past.
I kept waiting for a discovery, a big climax, at the end, but the story putters to an end just like life.
No comments:
Post a Comment