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The Minotaur (Paperback)

by Barbara Vine (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 464 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (2 Mar 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0141020725
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141020723
  • Product Dimensions: 18 x 11 x 3.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 92,607 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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

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Product Description

Product Description
Kerstin Kvist enters crumbling Lydstep Old Hall to live with the Cosways and to act as nurse to John: a grown man fed drugs by his family to control his lunatic episodes. But John’s strangeness is grotesquely mirrored in that of his four sisters who roam the dark, mazy Essex country house under the strict gaze of eighty-year-old Mrs Cosway. Despite being treated as an outsider, Kerstin is nevertheless determined to help John. But she soon discovers that there are others in the family who are equally as determined that John remain isolated, for sinister reasons of their own …

About the Author
Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. Viking have published her eleven previous novels, including A Dark-Adapted Eye, which won the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award, and most recently Grasshopper and The Blood Doctor - both bestsellers. Ruth Rendell sits in the House of Lords as a Labour peer. She lives in Maida Vale, London.
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The Minotaur
63% buy the item featured on this page:
The Minotaur 4.3 out of 5 stars (23)
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Customer Reviews

23 Reviews
5 star:
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 (1)
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars COMPELLING......., 26 Jun 2005
By Val De Beer "Val De Beer" - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: The Minotaur (Hardcover)
Here is Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell) doing what she does so brilliantly, drawing the reader into the labyrinthine ways of a seriously dysfunctional family.
The fact that the narrator is a stranger to the country, who observes carefully and describes minutely but objectively, creates the atmosphere which we project onto it, and that is a very gripping one.
Asperger's Syndrome has been dealt with by Mark Haddon already, but here it is not the narrator but one of the family members who has it, and we become fascinated by how it manifests itself.
The time is the Sixties in rural England, but there are references to, and similarities with, Victorian novels.
It is a very clever piece of writing indeed, and one which we become so absorbed in, that I would suggest not opening it unless you have a whole weekend in which you can do nothing but read.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars I would give it 6 stars if I could, 8 Nov 2005
By Linda Sackstein "linlibrary" (Raanana Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Minotaur (Hardcover)
I so agree with one of the previous reviewers that Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell is the best writer in her genre. She is streets ahead of anyone else in the field. The plot has been dealt with by several reviewers so will not repeat it here. What is so marvellous about Vine's writing is her building up of the story to a great (and usually unexpected climax). True, the plot was fairly obvious but it was the way she approached the story that made it so interesting. I also have the problem of wanting to gallop ahead and yet rationing myself so that I don't finish the book too quickly. I have read all her books and most of them twice. Her ability to deal with and develop the characters in her books is just amazing. Each and every one of the Cosway children as well as Mrs. Cosway and the outside characters were made so human and so believable. This book deserves 6 stars
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Another fantastic addition to the Vine Library, 13 Mar 2006
By james-Arundel "james-arundel" (Arundel, West Sussex, U.K.) - See all my reviews
  
As with the previous reveiwer, I cannot praise Barbara Vine's latest work enough. As is often the case with Vine's books, this ia a true slow-burner, and the real action does not occur until the latter parts of the book, but the build up and characters are so compelling you are gripped from the outset, feeling, perhaps like Kerstin that you are an outsider given a privileged but disturbing vantage point to observe the family in the Hall. The Cosways are a superb creation, sinister, grotesque, comedic and pitiable by turns, certainly a dysfunctional family to rival the dynamics of the Hilliard/Longley family in A Dark adapted Eye (One of my favourites from her earlier works). The clues and pointers are placed strategically from the start, from the characters reaquainted with Kerstin at the start and those they mention, to the Roman vase, the library and Lydstep Old Hall itself, leading you compulsively onwards to the shattering conclusions. I was slightly concerned at one point that developments toward the end would result in a cheap pastiche of events in Jane Eyre and Rebecca, but Vine creates her own set of circumstances, and by references to both, she deftly avoids this.
I have thoroughly enjoyed and wholeheartedly reccommend The Minotaur
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
I'm afraid I agree with the reviewer who said they'd felt they'd wasted time reading this book. I felt the same way. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Patience

5.0 out of 5 stars The banality of evil
I returned to this book after starting a psychology course, looking with more interest at the symbolism and the pathology of the characters in the book. Read more
Published 13 months ago by B. Williamson

3.0 out of 5 stars The Minotaur
Interesting story and intriguing characters I enjoyed reading about. It does feel a little old-fashioned but in a way this works as it places the book firmly in its time and... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Rich

5.0 out of 5 stars An achievement
Who needs vampires & gore when you've got Vine to give you the chills? Loved Kerstin, she seemed so human that it was comforting. Read more
Published on 11 April 2007 by sam hrt

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Vine classic
Having just re-read this book in paperback after devouring it in hardback when it was first published, I'm confident that it's another Vine classic. Read more
Published on 31 Dec 2006 by Bookwormjo

5.0 out of 5 stars The darkest of dark stories
Magnificent. This is a family with severe and serious relationship problems which seem to me to be caused solely by the mother's dark and obsessive possessiveness, coupled with... Read more
Published on 26 Dec 2006 by Jane Baker

5.0 out of 5 stars She's done it again
Another excellent novel from Ruth Rendell writing in her Barbara Vine mode. The story concerns a young Swedish nurse employed to look after a disturbed young man in his family... Read more
Published on 13 Nov 2006 by Robin Hewer

3.0 out of 5 stars a pot boiler for Ruth/Barbara
Few if any of the expected "I never thought of that" moments in this book.....on the positive side very convincing evocation of the late 60's cleverly contrasted with today's... Read more
Published on 10 Nov 2006 by C. Menzies

5.0 out of 5 stars A terrific read by any standards
What a great pleasure it is to settle down with a new Barbara Vine novel. As they usually appear at two- or three-year intervals I always try to read them slowly and savour them,... Read more
Published on 2 Nov 2006 by M. D. Smart

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing by Vine/Rendell's standards
The story-line and themes of this latest Vine/Rendell novel have already been laid out here, and there is consequently no need to repeat them. Read more
Published on 12 Jul 2006 by jfp2006

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