Ruth Rendell's fourth novel as Barbara Vine (A Dark Adapted-Eye, A
Fatal Inversion, The House of Stairs) marks a departure from the
formula of the first three: the years-after story of a past mystery
obligatory for Vine is intertwined with the story of a present-day
crime. The story moves back and forth between two narratives: the
first-person account of thickheaded, pitiable Joe Herbert, saved
from suicide by enigmatic Sander Wincanton, who adopts adoringly
grateful Joe as his gallowglass (a servant dedicated to protecting
his master's life) in his scheme to kidnap wealthy, frightened Nina
Abbott; and the third-person account of another gallowglass, Paul
Garnet, the bodyguard hired by Nina's overprotective husband.
Sander, it seems, had once been part of a gang that kidnapped Nina
in Italy years ago, but something (what was it?) went wrong, and
now he wants to try again with the help of Joe and Joe's flaky
foster-sister Tilly - a typically lethal case of folie a trois.
When Paul refuses an enormous bribe to cooperate with the gang,
they kidnap his little girl Jessica and offer a swap, unaware that
he's fallen in love with Nina. As usual in Vine, awakening love
speaks with the voice of doom - but this time the climax, though
carefully prepared, is both more surprising and less satisfyingly
inevitable than expected. Not entirely successful as either mystery
or psychological study - the characters muffle themselves and
retreat just when their pain should be sharpest - but still a
powerfully imagined nightmare of devotion gone haywire. (Kirkus
Reviews)
When Sandor snatched little Joe from the path of a London Tube train, he was quick to make clear the terms of the rescue. ‘I saved your life’, he told the homeless youngster, ‘so your life belongs to me now’. Sandor began to tell him a fairy-tale: an ageing prince, a kidnapped princess chained by one ankle, a missed rendezvous. But what did this mysterious story have to do with Sandor’s preparations? Joe had only under-stood his own role: he was a gallowglass, the servant of a Chief…
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