Tigerlily's Orchids
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Amazon.co.uk Review
No doubt Tigerlily’s Orchids will start the customary Ruth Rendell debate. Rendell aficionados take great pleasure in debating which are her finest books -- the much-loved Inspector Wexford series or her disturbing stand-alone psychological crime novels. This latest book is firmly in the latter camp, and for those (such as this writer) who – on balance -- prefer Rendell moving out of police procedural territory, it's a real treat.
A housewarming party for a new flat is usually a pleasurable experience, but the one thrown by the unworldly Stuart Font is to have unwanted consequences. Stuart invites everyone in his building to the bash, even the caretaker and his wife – people, Stuart finds, it is hard to warm to. The party turns out to be a memorable one for everyone involved – but for all the wrong reasons. The eponymous ‘Tigerlliy’ is an attractive young Asian women who is one of Stuart’s nearest neighbours (he was the one who gave her the exotic sobriquet); she does not however, conform to the stereotypical image of the powerless, vulnerable Asian woman. Her influence over those around her is to prove dark and all-enveloping, and Stuart’s parents will have reason to be concerned -- very concerned – for their hapless son.
The cruel wit of the narrative here is firmly in the unsettling territory of Rendell’s best work, and the sardonic note (as well as the fey, not-quite-naturalistic elements) are characteristic of the author's more recent efforts – the years are not softening her view of life. As usual, it is the sharp, quirky observation of character that makes Tigerlily’s Orchids so distinctive. The eccentric quality may not be to everyone’s taste – and it’s perhaps not a book for new Ruth Rendell readers to start with (one has to assume there will always be some), but admirers can part with their money with equanimity. --Barry Forshaw --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
The sins and self-deprecations of the inhabitants of a mansion block in north-west London are skewered with great skill in a novel that incorporates adultery, dipsomania, theft, paedophilia, drugs and, inevitably, murder. A clever whodunit most notable for its naked misanthropy. --Evening Standard
Ruth Rendell keeps up an amazingly high standard . . . utterly gripping --A.N. Wilson
Once her characters start twisting on ever-tightening tracks, their fates are brilliantly sealed, and it's never obvious who'll be the victim or the culprit. Rendell's greatest trick is making an unforeseen outcome feel predestined. --Financial Times
Throroughly gripping . . . As always with Rendell, it's the exquisite human and social minutiae that count --The Times
Ruth Rendell has few rivals as a chronicler of everyday life --Sunday Times
Ruth Rendell keeps up an amazingly high standard . . . utterly gripping --A.N. Wilson
Once her characters start twisting on ever-tightening tracks, their fates are brilliantly sealed, and it's never obvious who'll be the victim or the culprit. Rendell's greatest trick is making an unforeseen outcome feel predestined. --Financial Times
Throroughly gripping . . . As always with Rendell, it's the exquisite human and social minutiae that count --The Times
Ruth Rendell has few rivals as a chronicler of everyday life --Sunday Times
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In `Tigerlily's Orchids' Ruth Rendell takes one of her favourite themes - creepy and downright sad individuals living in close proximity (in this case a block of flats) - lights the blue touch paper, takes a step back, and allows events to ignite and explode on the page.
The characters include Stuart Font, a beautiful, vain young man who is perhaps the book's protagonist until something nasty happens to him; a retired alcoholic woman; two elderly ex-hippies who meet again years after a one night stand; a doctor who writes dodgy newspaper columns on medical matters; three young female students and the building's vile caretaker and his strange, deluded wife.
In addition to this, opposite the flats lives a retired ex-mechanic who enjoys people-watching and provides each of those he observes with a nickname. Next door to his home is a house with four Asian inhabitants, including the `Tigerlily' of the title (a nickname given to her by the neighbour - her actual name is Xue) whom Stuart Font becomes infatuated with. This is in addition to conducting an affair with Claudia, a married magazine editor...
Rendell weaves all the stories together; each character interacts with the others in some way. It's the matter-of-fact narrative voice Rendell employs that makes her often psychologically damaged individuals so believable, and the intertwined tales so gripping. Despite the seediness on offer, this is a pleasurable, compelling read.
The author tightens her narrative grip towards the end and provides an excellent resolution - one I didn't see coming.
It's not quite vintage Dame Ruth, but it's still an absorbing novel being both utterly sordid and strange. Without wishing to cause offence, I'll ask the question again: how DOES she produce works of this quality when she's now in her early eighties? She is a writing phenomenon, and still one of the best in the business.
Recommended.
The characters include Stuart Font, a beautiful, vain young man who is perhaps the book's protagonist until something nasty happens to him; a retired alcoholic woman; two elderly ex-hippies who meet again years after a one night stand; a doctor who writes dodgy newspaper columns on medical matters; three young female students and the building's vile caretaker and his strange, deluded wife.
In addition to this, opposite the flats lives a retired ex-mechanic who enjoys people-watching and provides each of those he observes with a nickname. Next door to his home is a house with four Asian inhabitants, including the `Tigerlily' of the title (a nickname given to her by the neighbour - her actual name is Xue) whom Stuart Font becomes infatuated with. This is in addition to conducting an affair with Claudia, a married magazine editor...
Rendell weaves all the stories together; each character interacts with the others in some way. It's the matter-of-fact narrative voice Rendell employs that makes her often psychologically damaged individuals so believable, and the intertwined tales so gripping. Despite the seediness on offer, this is a pleasurable, compelling read.
The author tightens her narrative grip towards the end and provides an excellent resolution - one I didn't see coming.
It's not quite vintage Dame Ruth, but it's still an absorbing novel being both utterly sordid and strange. Without wishing to cause offence, I'll ask the question again: how DOES she produce works of this quality when she's now in her early eighties? She is a writing phenomenon, and still one of the best in the business.
Recommended.
38 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I've a blind devotion to Ruth Rendell. That said, she hasn't written a novel I've absolutely loved under her Rendell name for around ten years, since Adam and Eve and Pinch Me. She's come close since then (Thirteen Steps Down, for example), but several of her recent novels have been - while very good - slightly lacking in something... tension, bite, tautness, whatever, I'm not sure. Tigerlily's Orchids is NOT the kind of stunning work of fiction she has produced in the past, but it's certainly on a par with Thirteen Steps Down.
I really can't put my finger on what it is that makes some of the recent novels of less than her normal excellence. They're a bit looser, there's not so much tension, so much sense of impending doom. They're not so intense. Yes, I think that's it. They're not so intense or claustrophobic. Also, I don't think her characters are quite as believable as they once were... lately she has taken on a tendency to exaggerate people's character traits to elaborate their personality, which makes them seem a little ridiculous (Claudia is a prime example here), and it takes away from one of the great strengths of her work: the shocking believability of the people involved in the latent horrors of day to day life. Also, and I am loathe to admit it, but she writes with a very old fashioned eye. She's always at pains to point out when something is "as it is said/done nowadays"; that's an exemplar of the attitude that keeps peeking through. Almost everyone seems as if they would be more at home at least a decade, if not more, ago.
That all said, she's still my favourite crime-writer. Her novels are still unique, as are her outlook and attitude. She is exceptional at conjuring strange plots and situations. She knits plots brilliantly. Her people are - generally - compelling. The greatest strength of Tigerlily's Orchids is actually the elderly alcoholic Olwen - who'll break your heart. One of Rendell's most powerful traits used to be the fact that her writing held no hint of judgement as to the people she would write about, and it's that coldness that's slipped away a bit - you often know what Rendell thinks of her characters nowadays (she dislikes Sophie, she dislikes Claudia, she dislikes Stuart but has a soft spot for him generally, she likes Marius, she finds Richenda amusing), but I can't fathom what she thinks of Olwen. And that's why hers is the most powerful character, and why the characters in Rendell's older books were often so very powerful. She withheld from judging them, not out of compassion but out of coldness. But now she doesn't.
Anyway, to the point. Tigerlily's Orchids, and Rendell's recent work generally, is flawed. Though it is less flawed than this review implies! This recent book is enjoyable, mysterious, has a couple of surprises (nice to see a proper twist back in Rendell's work!), some great set-pieces (Stuart's party), and some moments of great tension. She remains a fantastic, original crime-writer, and among her later work this is one of the stronger efforts. A wonderful bag of people are here for your delectation - meet them!
I really can't put my finger on what it is that makes some of the recent novels of less than her normal excellence. They're a bit looser, there's not so much tension, so much sense of impending doom. They're not so intense. Yes, I think that's it. They're not so intense or claustrophobic. Also, I don't think her characters are quite as believable as they once were... lately she has taken on a tendency to exaggerate people's character traits to elaborate their personality, which makes them seem a little ridiculous (Claudia is a prime example here), and it takes away from one of the great strengths of her work: the shocking believability of the people involved in the latent horrors of day to day life. Also, and I am loathe to admit it, but she writes with a very old fashioned eye. She's always at pains to point out when something is "as it is said/done nowadays"; that's an exemplar of the attitude that keeps peeking through. Almost everyone seems as if they would be more at home at least a decade, if not more, ago.
That all said, she's still my favourite crime-writer. Her novels are still unique, as are her outlook and attitude. She is exceptional at conjuring strange plots and situations. She knits plots brilliantly. Her people are - generally - compelling. The greatest strength of Tigerlily's Orchids is actually the elderly alcoholic Olwen - who'll break your heart. One of Rendell's most powerful traits used to be the fact that her writing held no hint of judgement as to the people she would write about, and it's that coldness that's slipped away a bit - you often know what Rendell thinks of her characters nowadays (she dislikes Sophie, she dislikes Claudia, she dislikes Stuart but has a soft spot for him generally, she likes Marius, she finds Richenda amusing), but I can't fathom what she thinks of Olwen. And that's why hers is the most powerful character, and why the characters in Rendell's older books were often so very powerful. She withheld from judging them, not out of compassion but out of coldness. But now she doesn't.
Anyway, to the point. Tigerlily's Orchids, and Rendell's recent work generally, is flawed. Though it is less flawed than this review implies! This recent book is enjoyable, mysterious, has a couple of surprises (nice to see a proper twist back in Rendell's work!), some great set-pieces (Stuart's party), and some moments of great tension. She remains a fantastic, original crime-writer, and among her later work this is one of the stronger efforts. A wonderful bag of people are here for your delectation - meet them!
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It's odd, but while I continue to find all Ruth Rendell's novels completely unputdownable, I'm finding the later ones increasingly unsatisfying. One reviewer commented on the fact that so many of her characters are so unpleasant, and this does make it quite hard to care about what happens to them. Apart from the sweet starry-eyed middle-aged lovers Rose and Marius and perhaps one or two others, it's hard to find a remotely sympathetic character in this book. Another reviewer found Olwen the alcoholic heartbreaking, but although I certainly found her bleakly believable, she also seemed most unlovable, not only because she was obviously beyond help in her alcoholic decline but because she was so cold that I could hardly blame her stepchildren for not wanting to have more to do with her.
The resolution of the supposed 'mystery' surrounding 'Tigerlily's' house surprised me only because what was really going on there (orchids, my foot!) had seemed so glaringly obvious all along that I thought it must surely be something else. And as for the murderer's identity, when it was finally revealed, the character was so undeveloped that the answer seemed almost incidental. All in all, a bit of a let-down.
The resolution of the supposed 'mystery' surrounding 'Tigerlily's' house surprised me only because what was really going on there (orchids, my foot!) had seemed so glaringly obvious all along that I thought it must surely be something else. And as for the murderer's identity, when it was finally revealed, the character was so undeveloped that the answer seemed almost incidental. All in all, a bit of a let-down.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Bit of a let down
I enjoyed this ruth rendell novel, but couldn't help feeling a bit disappointed and unsatisfied. The characters are a bit hit and miss, some interesting, some decidedly unlikeable,... Read more
Published 18 days ago by finna
Average
I didn't feel this book was up to Ruth Rendell's usual standard. It seemed rushed and less detailed, for the most part very predictable. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Cherry
Ruth Rendell never disappointed!
Really enjoyed reading this book on my Kindle, couldn't put it down as always with Ruth Rendell books a real page turner!
Published 1 month ago by Nicola, Derby
Very lack lustre
I haven't read Ruth Rendell for some time and was looking forward to this book. Apart from the alcoholic character who I thought fun and who made me laugh, the other characters I... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Naomi
disappointing
I have, in the past , just about always enjoyed any Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine novel with the exception of those too cosy Wexfords. This one,however, was a bitter disappointment. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mr. Richard G. S. Simon
Amusing and playful
I have to say that this book was a pleasure to read. As each character developed one found oneself loving them, and wanting to know more about this unusual mix of people whose... Read more
Published 3 months ago by D. ashworth
AWFUL. Do not buy this book!!!
I cannot believe that this book was written by the same person who wrote/writes the Wexford series. I have always preferred those to Rexford's other books and indeed have read very... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Sari Gilbert
bought as a gift
I bought this as a gift so can't comment on the book, but from my point of view the price ordering and delivery time was perfect.
Published 5 months ago by Am Hoogwerf
Wilting Orchids?
While worth reading as all Rendell's books are, this is a rather inconsequential novel.
Peggy Lee asked "Is that all there is?" and one could say the same of this book. Read more
Peggy Lee asked "Is that all there is?" and one could say the same of this book. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Troy Beal
Not her best but still very readable
I think the aspect I enjoy most about Ruth Rendell's novels is her characterisations of the various strange people which inhabit her stories - this book is no exception. Read more
Published 7 months ago by SilentSinger
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