Tree Of Hands
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Review
"The web is spun with fiendish skill." - "Observer"
"Domestic dramas exploding into deaths and murders...Threads are drawn tightly together in a lethal last pattern." - "Sunday Times" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
"Domestic dramas exploding into deaths and murders...Threads are drawn tightly together in a lethal last pattern." - "Sunday Times" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Product Description
It was some time since Benet had seen her mad mother, who had once tried to stab her with a carving knife on a train. So when Mopsa arrived at the airport looking drab and colourless, Benet tried not to hate her. But then the tragic death of a child began a chain of deception, kidnap and murder.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
scary but true because the book describes the unpredictable and rapidly changing personality of mopsa, the main characters' mother, who is mentally ill. benet gives a good insight into what it is like to live with schizpohrenia, (as it was understood in the 1980s). i read this book as part of my research for a psychology dissertation on depictions of mental illness in crime and thriller novels, and it is well researched and realistic.
apart from that it is a great novel, with plenty of opportunities for the reader to think they have it all figured out, only to realise they have no idea!! the characters are very believable, which isn't always a pleasant thing. they are real, selfish, manipulative, guilt-ridden, trying their best, honest, decent...the full range really!
the book starts with a happy beginning and gets progressively worse - like a good crime thriller should. it took me a bit to get into it, but once i was hooked i stayed up all night until the end.
this was the first (believe it or not) rendell book i read, and i now plan on reading many more.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
From the opening section of this book you could be forgiven for thinking that Mopsa, the selfish mother with a history of mental illness, is going to be the main protaganist of this book, but this is a good trick that I've noticed Rendell pull before. (Hitchcock did the same thing in "Psycho", lulling the viewer at the start into thinking that it was Marion who was at the centre of the story, when it was really Norman Bates, who hadn't come into the story yet). In fact once Mopsa has pulled off her most heinous trick of all she virtually disappears from the story altogether, apart from the occasional mention, and we are left with a whole mass of people caught up in the web she has inadvertently woven.
Mopsa's daughter Benet is a bestselling author with a little boy, James. When James dies from a breathing disorder Mopsa takes it into her irrational head to abduct a child as a substitute for him. At first Benet is appalled, but as the days go past she finds herself growing more and more attached to the little boy, Jason, whom she gradually suspects has been physically abused by his real mother, Carol Stratford. The story moves backwards and forwards from Benet's life to Carol's, and also, along the way, looking in at that of Terry Wand, an ex-boyfriend of Carol's, who is up to some pretty shady dealing of his own.
This is an immensely clever story, and Rendell writes with a clear, refreshingly unsentimental eye. She wastes little sympathy on Carol, who is shown to be an amoral woman completely uninterested in her own children. She isn't even aware Jason is missing until about 2 days later! Little Jason himself isn't simply a stock toddler character, but to very much have a personality of his own.
There is a happy ending, although a lot of the characters do come to a sticky end. The ending is in fact my only criticism of the book, feeling rushed (not uncommon with a Rendell work), and a few too many coincidences of time and place. But having said that this is a real page-turner, and the intricate interlocking of the characters' lives is done very well indeed.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Ruth Rendell is ever so clever in this book. A very wicked story about very wicked characters doing very wicked things. The story is about different lifes of different people all involved with each other but they don't know it and haven't got a clue that their actions cause consequences for the others. It has all the ingredients that makes a book a bestseller. There are no saints in this book and although they all mean well, it is a story about selfishness and greed. A thriller first class. I could not put the book down, I had a need to find out what would happen next.
The book is a page turner and it bites you from page 1 onwards only to let go at the final page.
Definitely a must read if you like a good plot, a believable story and you have time to finish it in one go !!
The book is a page turner and it bites you from page 1 onwards only to let go at the final page.
Definitely a must read if you like a good plot, a believable story and you have time to finish it in one go !!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Compelling, though rather heartbreaking stuff for parents
This is Ruth Rendell during her top writing years, published 1984 the plotting operates on several cleverly interlinked levels. Read more
Published 9 months ago by smartesthorse
These Hands caught me and didn't let go!
Open the book and you won't put it down unless you really have to. And then that won't be for long. The characters are hugely interesting and so real. And the plot is fantastic. Read more
Published on 15 Jan 2008 by Carole Gill
Some glaring errors
I agree with the other reviewers - this was yet another exciting read from Ruth Rendell, I could not put it down and all in all it was excellent. Read more
Published on 15 Nov 2007 by Tamara
yet more first-class fiction
Benet Archdale’s selfish mother Margaret (“Mopsa”) was mad. She once tried to stab her 14 year old daughter with a carving knife as they travelled in a train... Read more
Published on 21 Dec 2003 by RachelWalker
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