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70 of 77 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
sex, sin, psychiatry and salvation, 13 Jan 2004
By A Customer
My summary says it all really. As in her previous post-conversion bestsellers, she bases it all on a first person character with serious problems, usually of the mental or spiritual sort, but with plenty of hair-raising physical and supernatural danger thrown in. Then we see them saved in some way and cheer them on to some kind of potentially happy ending. This time its a high class rent boy mixed up with the seriously nasty people we met in The High Flyer.
It's about the victory of the human spirit, sort of. For her this is symbolised by ball room dancing, of all things. Two immaculately dressed prostitutes doing a John Travolta type solo at the Savoy to applause. All highly improbable and a creaky sort of plot and cliches abound, but hey, who cares? It's so battily improbable its must be based on real events. I couldn't put it down. She lays a spell on you. She has the gift.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Time for something new?, 3 Feb 2005
Howatch is such an excellent storyteller that this book is as compelling as her others, but her theme is becoming repetitive. Her six Starbridge novels all present different perspectives on the Church of England, but the three St Benet's novels (of which this is the third) all have essentially the same perspective on spiritual healing in the modern world. As a whole, the nine books have presented a fascinating and intelligent portrait inside a world relatively unfamiliar to most of us, but Howatch seems to have run out of things to say about it. So, instead of developing her theme, she has simply increasingly marginalised her characters. In this case a classy rent boy tries to escape his life among extreme sadists and controllers and finds - surprise surprise! - that doing so requires the healing of childhood wounds. Recognise anything, Howatch fans? To enjoy these books you need an interest in the spiritual, and you need to be able to handle Howatch's way of describing spiritual matters by using layers of metaphor - a technique that won't appeal to everybody. If you are happy with these things, you may well find this book a page-turner - I did. Nevertheless, I ended it feeling slightly unsatisfied. Thanks for the enjoyable read, Ms Howatch - you still tell a story better than almost anybody. But I feel there are clear signs that it's time to move on.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good story, but the dialogue will make you cringe!, 17 Sep 2007
I've been a fan of Susan Howatch for years. The Starbridge novels had me gripped in my teens. However, when I read 'The High Flyer' (the book which precedes 'The Heartbreaker') my admiration for Howatch's writing waned. As a result I wasn't on the lookout for the next in the series - 'The Heartbreaker' - I just came across it by chance the other day. I decided to give her another go because Howatch, even at her worst, does spin a good yarn.
I have to say from the start that, despite all my misgivings and the criticisms I'll outline below, I did actually enjoy this novel enough to give it 3 stars. This is because I found I cared what happened to the characters even though they were for the most part almost completely unbelieveable as people in the real world, and also because I was glad to find myself once again absorbed in the world of Nicholas Darrow and Lewis Hall - clergymen who are engaged on a daily basis in rooting evil out of the world.
The story centres around Carta who we met in 'The High Flyer'. Carta has abandoned her high flying city career and we find her engaged as a fundraiser for St. Benet's new healing centre. She becomes involved with a male prostitute, Gavin, who caters for the gay market even though he's straight. Carta finds Gavin irresistibly attractive even as she realises that his complicated life could well have a very negative effect on her own.
Gavin is equally attracted to Carta and from the start tries to woo her with overtly sexual come ons. However, this is where Howatch is out of her depth. When she has her characters use modern slang I cringe and have steel myself to read on. It invariably reminds me of either a priest trying to be cool and 'down with the kids' (kind of like Graham Norton's character in Fr. Ted!) or listening to your granny trying out phrases like 'doing my head in'! For example, Gavin, a cool man of the world type habitually uses phrases like 'Frosty Puss', 'Barbie-boobs' and refers to Jesus as 'The Bloke'. Give me a break!
The dialogue is also completely unnatural and forced. No way do real people talk like the people in this book! Every chance she gets, Howatch has a character up on a soapbox preaching and lecturing for all they're worth. In the real world, these would be people to avoid at parties at all costs!
When they're not lecturing each other at length the characters are obsessively introspective, coming out with coherent, well-thought out streams of consciousness on all manner of moral and ethical dilemmas - in this book mostly to do with homosexuality. The opinions we are treated to are not particularly novel, interesting or thought-provoking.
In conclusion, although my admiration for Howatch's writing lies firmly with her earlier work, this was definitely readable and at no stage did I want to abandon the book. The story was compelling enough to make me want to get to the bottom of why Gavin was so entranced and trapped by his female manager (pimp); what had happened in his past to make him so fearful of certain characters and whether Carta would work out her relationship with her boyfriend or end up with Gavin.
If you haven't read any of Howatch's previous books, I wouldn't recommend starting with this one - I'm not sure it would make sense. I would definitely recommend starting with the Starbridge books - there you'll be introduced to Nicholas Darrow at his best and the healing process will make more sense. Then you'd probably enjoy this one.
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