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A Dark-Adapted Eye [Paperback]

Barbara Vine
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Book Description

7 May 2009

A Dark-Adapted Eye - a prize-winning crime classic by bestselling author Barbara Vine

Winner of the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award

'A rich, complex and beautifully crafted novel' P.D. James

'Compulsively readable ... a carefully devised plot unfolded with the most cunning art. Wilkie Collins and Dickens would have admired it' Sunday Times

Like most families they had their secrets . . .

And they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. No onlooker would guess that prim Vera Hillyard and her beautiful, adored younger sister, Eden, were locked in a dark and bitter combat over one of those secrets. England in the fifties was not kind to women who erred, so they had to use every means necessary to keep the truth hidden behind closed doors - even murder.

'Brilliantly plotted. Vine is not afraid to walk down the mean streets of the mind and can build up an almost tangible atmosphere of menace and unease' Daily Telegraph

'Will linger in your memory long after you have closed the book. A first-rate novel' Washington Post

A Dark-Adapted Eye is modern classic. If you enjoy the crime novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love this book.

Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.


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Product details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (7 May 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0141040181
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141040189
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 1.8 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 42,651 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Product Description

Review

'Compulsively readable... a carefully devised plot unfolded with the most cunning art. Wilkie Collins and Dickens would have admired it' Sunday Times 'Brilliantly plotted. Vine is not afraid to walk down the mean streets of the mind and can build up an almost tangible atmosphere of menace and unease' Daily Telegraph 'It is no secret that Barbara Vine is the distinguished crime writer Ruth Rendell and in A Dark-Adapted Eye we have Ms Rendell at the height of her powers. This is a rich, compelx and beautifully crafted novel, which combines excitement with psychological subtlety. I salute a deeply satisfying achievement' - P.D. James

About the Author

Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fourteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. All her books are available in Penguin. Ruth Rendell sits in the House of Lords as a Labour peer. She lives in Maida Vale, London.

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Customer Reviews

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars a well-constructed ploa 6 Feb 2012
Format:Paperback
An excellent read. I agree that it is a little confusing to start with - trying to work out who was who - but soon enough I found myself sucked into the plot and eager to know the whys, whens and hows! Using Faith as narrator works well, as her "dark-adapted eye" becomes used to the darkness that surrounded events allowing her to finally piece together memories from the past. The inter-weaving of the stories of the abducted girls adds more substance to the plot. The ending is the more effective since we, like Faith, are left wondering.....
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The best of the best 2 Dec 2011
Format:Paperback
Complicated, intricate, divinely plotted, mysterious, edgy, atmospheric, this to me is this writer's finest work. There is plot upon sub plot and characters as well developed as in the finest contemporary literature. Were it not for the fact that Barbara Vine/ Ruth Rendell is considered under the category of crime writer I think this would have been listed for a major literature award.

There is a murder in this..at least one.. and a woman is judicially hanged. The book starts off with a child, who is to grow into the main protagonist, awakening on the morning of this most certain of deaths. The story then unfolds jumping forward and back in time to see how the tragic chain of events arose and what the after effects were. In the present time a writer wants to do a book on the murderess and contacts the family to get their stories, not all want to talk,one was a babe in arms when it happened.

Much of the action takes place during the second world war and before it in rural East Anglia the sense of time and place is profound.

I have deliberately not given away much of the plot, almost anything I say would be a spoiler all I can say is I highly, highly recommend it.

If you are unfortunate enough only to have experienced this author's recent workm you are going to be totally taken aback this book is far far better than anything she has written in this century
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Slow Burn 24 Jun 2011
Format:Paperback
This is a well written and intricate book, well worth reading, and going back to after a few years.
Just a little on the slow side, and with the occasional annoying Vine habit of "If I knew then what I know now".
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