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A Fatal Inversion
 
 

A Fatal Inversion (Paperback)

by Barbara Vine (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin; New edition edition (2 Mar 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140086374
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140086379
  • Product Dimensions: 18 x 10.6 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 132,458 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #17 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > V > Vine, Barbara

Product Description

Product Description
In the long hot summer of 1976, a group of young people are camping in Wyvis Hall. Adam, Rufus, Shiva, Vivien and Zosie hardly ask why they are there or how they are to live; they scavenge, steal and sell the family heirlooms. In short, they exist. Ten years later, the bodies of a woman and child are discovered in the Hall's animal cemetery. Which woman? Whose child? "I defy anyone to guess the conclusion! The clues are cunningly planted, so that it seems one should have known all along. A most satisfying end" - "Daily Telegraph".

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6 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Ten Years After..., 1 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.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely enthralling...., 19 Oct 2003
By Carmen Lopez-acevedo "cotecillo" (Spain) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
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.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Un-put downable!, 9 April 2000
Simply the best work of Ruth Rendell aka Barbara Vine. A superb plot and an excellent BBC mini-series screenplay. An absolute must...
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Vine/Rendell at her very best
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... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Skylady

2.0 out of 5 stars A banal plot
During the summer of 1976, Adam Verne-Smith inherits a big old country house in Suffolk, Wyvis Hall. Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2007 by Philippe Horak

5.0 out of 5 stars Once again a great novel!
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... Read more
Published on 6 Jan 2001

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