The Minotaur
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'The reader is kept in suspense throughout... vintage wine from the Rendell vine' Independent 'The Cosway family is a mesmerizing creation... I rushed through the last pages' - Penelope Lively, Sunday Times 'Stealthy, credible, ingenious and addictive' Literary Review
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As soon as Kerstin Kvist arrives at remote, ivy-covered Lydstep Old Hall in Essex, she feels like a character in a gothic novel. A young nurse fresh out of school, Kerstin has been hired for a position with the Cosway family, residents of the Hall for generations. She is soon introduced to her “charge,” John Cosway, a thirty-nine-year-old man whose strange behavior is vaguely explained by his mother and sisters as part of the madness that runs in the family.
Weeks go by at Lydstep with little to mark the passage of time beyond John’s daily walks and the amusingly provincial happenings that engross the Cosway women, and Kerstin occupies her many free hours at the Hall reading or making entries into her diary. Meanwhile, bitter wrangling among Julia Cosway and her four grown daughters becomes increasingly evident. But this is just the most obvious of the tensions that charge the old remote estate, with its sealed rooms full of mystery. Soon Kerstin will find herself in possession of knowledge she will wish she’d never attained, secrets that will propel the occupants of Lydstep Old Hall headlong into sexual obsession, betrayal, and, finally, murder.
Also available in a Random House Large Print edition and as an eBook --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Weeks go by at Lydstep with little to mark the passage of time beyond John’s daily walks and the amusingly provincial happenings that engross the Cosway women, and Kerstin occupies her many free hours at the Hall reading or making entries into her diary. Meanwhile, bitter wrangling among Julia Cosway and her four grown daughters becomes increasingly evident. But this is just the most obvious of the tensions that charge the old remote estate, with its sealed rooms full of mystery. Soon Kerstin will find herself in possession of knowledge she will wish she’d never attained, secrets that will propel the occupants of Lydstep Old Hall headlong into sexual obsession, betrayal, and, finally, murder.
Also available in a Random House Large Print edition and as an eBook --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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
I have thoroughly enjoyed and wholeheartedly reccommend The Minotaur
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format: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
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
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 her very dark and unguessable secret. Vine's imaginative powers have no end to their depth - she's supreme. This book has sex - one character sleeping with 2 sisters at the same time, a vicar,a very dodgy doctor, a family feud simmering mostly in silence but which occasionally raises itself above the parapet to be quoshed rapidly;intigue in spades;collusion in spades; a creepy library. This is juxtaposed with an idyllic country setting.
Vine is amazing. Long may she write such chilling novels which stop us in our tracks and prevent us from doing anything except turning the pages. I can only think in superlatives about this book.
Vine is amazing. Long may she write such chilling novels which stop us in our tracks and prevent us from doing anything except turning the pages. I can only think in superlatives about this book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Brilliant Book! A Must Read!
Great book. Breathtakingly well executed. A highly accomplished work. Can't praise it enough. I've bought a pile of eight or nine Barbara Vine books to read having enjoyed this... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Jan Rob
Easy to read and intriguing
This is a good book. The story is interesting and develops well, it is a pleasure to read, the characters are interesting.
Overall an entertaining experience.
Overall an entertaining experience.
Published 16 months ago by R. G. Brizi
The Minotaur
I have read many, if not most, of Ruth Rendell's output and she never disappoints. I loved the atmosphere of `The Minotaur' - the creepy location, the sixties setting, the... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Harriet BlueStocking
They keep the real world away
Here again Ruth Rendell builds tension with skill and subtlety to a degree that makes her narrative totally compulsive. Read more
Published on 18 Sep 2009 by Eileen Shaw
Boring me to death...
I have persevered with this book to about half way although the narrator's voice is annoying me, the facts are spelt out as if talking to an inattentive 5 year old and the sisters... Read more
Published on 10 Sep 2009 by Cuckoo
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 on 30 April 2009 by Patience
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 on 26 May 2008 by B. Williamson
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 place.
Published on 28 April 2008 by Rich
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
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 SilentSinger
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