13th tale, Rendell and more

I have been unavoidably away from blogging and the Internet for a few days -- the past couple of posts were by courtesy of the advance timer button -- but now I am back. Back, in fact, with a post "hoisted up from the comments" of my previous post, which linked to my review of Diane Setterfield's Thirteenth Tale. Susan Balée's view of the book as a modern Victorian novel is exactly my own. She writes:

"I, too, really enjoyed "Thirteenth Tale," .....Sort of a modern Charlotte Bronte story, and I was certainly fooled by the extra character haunting the plot (I'm saying that obliquely, so as not to spoil the novel for other readers)."

Susan continues: "I've just read Ruth Rendell's "The Crocodile Bird," on a rec from Becky -- quite a good psych. thriller. Do you like Rendell and can you make any other recs? I don't like detective stories, but I do like thrillers!" "

Well, yes, as it happens, I can recommend a few thrillers ;-) I love being asked to recommend books!

For a sustained series of thrillers (as opposed to detective/crime novels) I don't think that Lee Child's Jack Reacher series can be bettered. Start with the first: if you like that, you'll revel in the rest. Jack Reacher (like his televisual counterpart Jack Bauer) is a perfect storm of a hero, and I'm reliably informed that he is immensely popular with women readers.

If you are more interested in a stand-alone, I can suggest five intensely exciting novels  that I'll bet money will have you turning the pages without being able to stop (click on titles for more details):

Triptych by Karin Slaughter

The Serbian Dane by Lief Davidsen

The two-minute rule by Robert Crais

No time for goodbye by Linwood Barclay

The Woods by Harlan Coben

Turning to Ruth Rendell, Susan's currently identified thriller writer, I like almost everything she writes: she produces a longstanding crime fiction "English village" [East Anglian market town, actually] police-procedural series featuring Chief Inspector Wexford and Inspector Burden- characters with whom I have literally grown up, and seen change as they have married, had children and (in the most recent books) the children have had children. These started in the 1960s and have held up incredibly well, still going strong today , as Becky notes (I have the latest installment on my shelf to be read). Ruth Rendell also writes stand-alone thrillers (and many short stories) under that name, including The Crocodile Bird as recommended by Becky; and as if that isn't enough, she writes other books under the name of Barbara Vine, which tend to be slightly more dense and deep concerning motivation and character. A good one to try is The Chimney Sweeper's Boy -- successful author dies of heart attack, but was he all that he seemed? Another good one is The Blood Doctor, not so much for its plot (maybe it is because I'm scientific, but I found that pretty obvious), but because it is set in 2002, the year the House of Lords dissolved itself (apart from a rump), and is told from the point of view of one of the hereditary peers who are (mostly) metaphorically falling on their swords. The atmosphere is so convincing, due to the happy duality of Barbara Vine's insightful writing and Ruth Rendell's real-life role as a Labour life peer. Enjoy!

Comments

[Martin Edwards]

I share your enthusiasm for Ruth Rendell. She's a brilliant writer and it's amazing that, with possibly one or two exceptions in the last few years, she's maintained the highest quality as well as being so very prolific. 'A Fatal Inversion' and 'A Judgment in Stone' are my favourite contemporary novels of psychological suspense.
I'm a very different writer from Rendell, but I always wanted to create a Rendellesque character. And the creation of Guy, who features in 'The Arsenic Labyrinth' was a sort of homage to her work.

[Kerrie Smith]

Ruth Rendell is one of my favourites too Maxine. I think in her recent novels the distinction between her writing as Rendell and as Barbara Vine have blurred. There hasn't been a Vine novel since THE MINOTAUR (2005). Do you think she has given up using that pseudonym?

[Maxine]

Possibly, Kerrie -- maybe it is just that she's slowing down a bit now she's over 80. I agree that the distinction between Vine and Rendell is harder to draw now -- while I was writing the above post, I initially put "psychological" to distinguish Vine, but then, recalling the last couple of Rendells I've read, I realised that the adjective also applied, so amended my wording a bit. Maybe the message is that if we have a split personality, it tends to integrate the older we get?

Martin- after your comment I now realise I have to read your non-Lake District books as well!

[Susan Balée]

Hi, Maxine-- Thanks so much for this post. I really did enjoy "The Crocodile Bird," and just before that I'd read "The Water's Lovely," which was quite good until the last fifth, when it kind of wigged out. I never think it's a good idea to pull in a current event, because even those that seem huge at the time are often not memorable a few years later ("Water's Lovely" pulled in the Indonesian tsunami -- I think she couldn't resist its symbolism with the story of a death by drowning).

Actually, now that I think of it, "Crocodile Bird" uses the story of Lloyd's of London having liability issues and making its "names" pay fortunes to cover them. I'm only up on that because I read David Hare's "Amy's View" last year and it used the same event. Big in England, no doubt, but not known here in the U.S.

Thanks so much for all these recommendations. BTW, who do you like better, Maxine: Ruth Rendell or Barbara Vine?

[Maxine]

I think the Lloyd's affair was so big in the UK as Lloyd's was "the" watchword for standards in investment, and a lot of upper-middle class people had their money in it-- it was regarded as a savings bank that would endure -- the bell and all of that. So it was a shock to the entire UK financial system, at the time. Of course, it all seems a bit dated now -- in fact when I saw Amy's View (with Judi Dench!!!!!) I felt that aspect was already rather dated.

Rendell or Vine--hard one. In general, the Rendells are easier reads, with more plot, but the Vines (which tend to depend more on atmosphere) stay with you for longer.