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2.96 AVERAGE
2.96 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Disjointed with an unnecessary amount of point of view characters, Dark Corners falls short as a thriller
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia
I relish Ruth Rendell for obvious facts which I have propounded in my reviews ad nauseum, but no hesitation in putting it forth again - I love the way her books start from apparently innocent circumstances, normal appearing characters and slowly but steadily deteriorate into mental chaos, insanity and murder. This book too wasnt an exception.
The premises were innocent - Carl, a stay at home author with comfortable financial circumstances, enjoying the moderate success of his first book, is working on his second, and hires the upper part of his house to a new tenant Dermot, who slowly and steadily tries to take over.
Carl tries to withstand, but his fortunes get reversed when he 'sells' some pills (DNP or dinitrophenol) to his obese actor friend who desperately wants to lose her girth, leading to undesirable effects.
Dermot, and then later his girl friend slowly possess Carl, and his steady girl friend Nicola, slowly drifts away from his life. The whole sordid story has a couple of murders and ends in an unexpected manner, slightly different from other Ruth Rendell endings.
I enjoyed this book, and was totally enthralled with the mental makeover of Carl. Thank God, I am not letting my house to anyone.
The premises were innocent - Carl, a stay at home author with comfortable financial circumstances, enjoying the moderate success of his first book, is working on his second, and hires the upper part of his house to a new tenant Dermot, who slowly and steadily tries to take over.
Carl tries to withstand, but his fortunes get reversed when he 'sells' some pills (DNP or dinitrophenol) to his obese actor friend who desperately wants to lose her girth, leading to undesirable effects.
Dermot, and then later his girl friend slowly possess Carl, and his steady girl friend Nicola, slowly drifts away from his life. The whole sordid story has a couple of murders and ends in an unexpected manner, slightly different from other Ruth Rendell endings.
I enjoyed this book, and was totally enthralled with the mental makeover of Carl. Thank God, I am not letting my house to anyone.
I won this book on Goodreads. I have never read a Ruth Rendell book before and this is her final one. A bit strange at first and the main character was so annoying but about half way through things started to get really interesting. A few twists and turns and overall a good light read.
I love Ruth Rendell particularly her Inspector Wexford mysteries, but this, her last book before her death, is not very good. It's not disturbing and insightful like her best psychological thrillers, there's no mystery and the characters are unlikable. Still, she's one of the masters, just not with this book.
A combination of Ruth Rendell and Barbara Vine. She saved the best til last
Entirely too predictable. The only character I liked was Tom and I still don't understand what his purpose was!
Rendell's last novel. I was sad it wasn't a Wexford or a Vine, both of which I generally prefer to this strand of her work. But it was a good novel, as usual focused on a group of people who are loosely connected in some way... None of them are out and out monsters, but they do have character traits that make them a little off. Carl, the writer, is weak and needy and skint, to the point where his financial problems override his judgement. Dermot, his tenant, is a moralising type who isn't above using his moral superiority in a little blackmail, Lizzie is a compulsive liar, so much so that when something bad happens to her, it isn't believed - the girl who cried wolf.
In a relatively short novel Rendell creates a very claustrophobic atmosphere where the characters are intensely realised to the point where their behaviour, even the most outrageous, seems predestined. She shows how easy it could be to cross the line and do something terrible.
The quotation from an interview at the beginning of the novel almost sums it up -
"But why the fascination with psychopaths?
"Well," Rendell says in her precise voice, "I do empathise with people who are driven by dreadful impulses. I think to be driven to want to kill must be such a terrible burden. I try, and I think I succeed, in making my readers feel pity for my psychopaths, because I do."
In a relatively short novel Rendell creates a very claustrophobic atmosphere where the characters are intensely realised to the point where their behaviour, even the most outrageous, seems predestined. She shows how easy it could be to cross the line and do something terrible.
The quotation from an interview at the beginning of the novel almost sums it up -
"But why the fascination with psychopaths?
"Well," Rendell says in her precise voice, "I do empathise with people who are driven by dreadful impulses. I think to be driven to want to kill must be such a terrible burden. I try, and I think I succeed, in making my readers feel pity for my psychopaths, because I do."
Dark Corners by Ruth Rendell is a 2015 Scribner publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Ruth Rendell, who also wrote as Barbara Vine, passed away in 2015, just a few months before this book was published. I had planned on centering a blog post around Ruth, featuring a review of this, her final book, but sadly, every time I picked it up, I could not, for the life of me, stay interested.
But, I needed to turn in a review for the book, one way or another, so I started all over from the beginning, and forged ahead, determined to make it all the way through, without giving up.
Carl, a novelist, inherits his father’s large and unusual supply of home remedies, along with a nice home, but needs help making ends meet, so he rents out an upstairs room, and quickly becomes rather dependent on that income.
When his friend, Stacey, an actress, desperate to lose weight, sees his father’s diet pills, Carl agrees to sell her some, a transaction Carl’s new tenant witnesses. So, when Stacey dies suddenly, the pills being a major contributor to her death, Carl finds himself suffering from a moral dilemma, and worried he could be held responsible. But, his problems are compounded by his tenant’s decision to blackmail Carl.
From here the story becomes a cat and mouse game between Carl and his tenant, with a slight amount of dark humor tossed in. Carl, who is normally a little bland and mild-mannered, begins to slowly unravel as his conscience weighs on him and he begins to crumble under the pressure of being blackmailed and the ever present possibility his dark secret will be exposed.
Alongside this story, is a secondary thread, that slowly intersects with Carl’s story, and while it’s rather odd, it was also weirdly absorbing.
Although I was determined to get this book finished, I still found it very slow going, and plodded through it at a very slow rate of speed. It was not until the second half of the book that things really started to pick up and the suspense began to build in earnest.
Despite the fact that my interest was finally peaked, the story was still pretty predictable, except for Lizzie’s situation, which I could never quite figure out. The plot was rather clever, but not exactly unique.
For me the ending was extremely abrupt and just plain… well plain. I felt like I had gone through all of this for nothing, although I probably should have guessed this was how things would play out.
I really hate that this was Ruth’s last impression, because this is not her best effort. But, one must remember that the author was in her mid-eighties when she passed and I certainly hope my mind will be that sharp if I am lucky to live that long.
I have a nice collection of Ruth Rendell novels and a smattering of her Barbara Vine stories too. I enjoyed the long running Inspector Wexford series as well, and someday I hope to complete my collection of those books.
I still plan to feature Ruth on the blog someday and pay tribute to her and her work, as she was one of my favorite mystery writers for a long time.
Even though this book failed to make a huge impression on me, it’s still a solid enough effort, and any diehard fan of Ruth Rendell will want to add this book to their collection.
Ruth Rendell, who also wrote as Barbara Vine, passed away in 2015, just a few months before this book was published. I had planned on centering a blog post around Ruth, featuring a review of this, her final book, but sadly, every time I picked it up, I could not, for the life of me, stay interested.
But, I needed to turn in a review for the book, one way or another, so I started all over from the beginning, and forged ahead, determined to make it all the way through, without giving up.
Carl, a novelist, inherits his father’s large and unusual supply of home remedies, along with a nice home, but needs help making ends meet, so he rents out an upstairs room, and quickly becomes rather dependent on that income.
When his friend, Stacey, an actress, desperate to lose weight, sees his father’s diet pills, Carl agrees to sell her some, a transaction Carl’s new tenant witnesses. So, when Stacey dies suddenly, the pills being a major contributor to her death, Carl finds himself suffering from a moral dilemma, and worried he could be held responsible. But, his problems are compounded by his tenant’s decision to blackmail Carl.
From here the story becomes a cat and mouse game between Carl and his tenant, with a slight amount of dark humor tossed in. Carl, who is normally a little bland and mild-mannered, begins to slowly unravel as his conscience weighs on him and he begins to crumble under the pressure of being blackmailed and the ever present possibility his dark secret will be exposed.
Alongside this story, is a secondary thread, that slowly intersects with Carl’s story, and while it’s rather odd, it was also weirdly absorbing.
Although I was determined to get this book finished, I still found it very slow going, and plodded through it at a very slow rate of speed. It was not until the second half of the book that things really started to pick up and the suspense began to build in earnest.
Despite the fact that my interest was finally peaked, the story was still pretty predictable, except for Lizzie’s situation, which I could never quite figure out. The plot was rather clever, but not exactly unique.
For me the ending was extremely abrupt and just plain… well plain. I felt like I had gone through all of this for nothing, although I probably should have guessed this was how things would play out.
I really hate that this was Ruth’s last impression, because this is not her best effort. But, one must remember that the author was in her mid-eighties when she passed and I certainly hope my mind will be that sharp if I am lucky to live that long.
I have a nice collection of Ruth Rendell novels and a smattering of her Barbara Vine stories too. I enjoyed the long running Inspector Wexford series as well, and someday I hope to complete my collection of those books.
I still plan to feature Ruth on the blog someday and pay tribute to her and her work, as she was one of my favorite mystery writers for a long time.
Even though this book failed to make a huge impression on me, it’s still a solid enough effort, and any diehard fan of Ruth Rendell will want to add this book to their collection.
dark
mysterious
I had to ponder over my hesitation about reading psychological thrillers and the answer lies within the real possibility of these things happening to me! As crazy as things sometimes may seem, there is just that tiny little statistics of probability that it could happen to me, to my neighbour, to my colleague, or anyone who you think are quite ordinary.
In Dark Corners, a fairly ordinary guy, Carl Martin, inherited his father’s house along with everything in it. He was too lazy to clear things out and ended up, accidentally, causing a friend to die. Unfortunately, he has a tenant who begun to blackmail him but he didn’t just stop there. Things continued to escalate with such speed to a climax that you just knew was really unavoidable…
It was so hard to stand on the sideline for this one. I felt bad for Carl, I can understand his laziness and his fears though at the same time, frustrated at his cowardice. And then, I can’t help but cheer him on despite the wrongness of it all! But when push comes to shove, people will snap and not always in the best of ways. And this is exactly what I fear… if such a thing was to happen to me, I’m afraid of doing the wrong thing!
There also wasn’t a particular character I liked. There were the ordinary characters that were just that and there were the crazies whom I just don’t understand! The story is told from multiple perspectives and sometimes, I wonder why this is. There were just little bits from a few perspectives which were relevant to the main plot and everything else I found were tangential to the whole story and inconsequential to my interest in both story and character. I actually wanted to know Carl’s girlfriend’s thoughts but her perspective is not part of the story :(
Overall, Dark Corners carry a fascinating and a very possible life scenario/s. It explores the darkest corners of our minds and just what we are capable of. Whilst I didn’t particularly love it, it was still a thrilling read and the suspense was built cleverly right up to the end when we witnessed Carl acting upon his latest decision.
Thanks to Hutchinson / Penguin Australia for paperback copy in exchange of honest review
In Dark Corners, a fairly ordinary guy, Carl Martin, inherited his father’s house along with everything in it. He was too lazy to clear things out and ended up, accidentally, causing a friend to die. Unfortunately, he has a tenant who begun to blackmail him but he didn’t just stop there. Things continued to escalate with such speed to a climax that you just knew was really unavoidable…
It was so hard to stand on the sideline for this one. I felt bad for Carl, I can understand his laziness and his fears though at the same time, frustrated at his cowardice. And then, I can’t help but cheer him on despite the wrongness of it all! But when push comes to shove, people will snap and not always in the best of ways. And this is exactly what I fear… if such a thing was to happen to me, I’m afraid of doing the wrong thing!
There also wasn’t a particular character I liked. There were the ordinary characters that were just that and there were the crazies whom I just don’t understand! The story is told from multiple perspectives and sometimes, I wonder why this is. There were just little bits from a few perspectives which were relevant to the main plot and everything else I found were tangential to the whole story and inconsequential to my interest in both story and character. I actually wanted to know Carl’s girlfriend’s thoughts but her perspective is not part of the story :(
Overall, Dark Corners carry a fascinating and a very possible life scenario/s. It explores the darkest corners of our minds and just what we are capable of. Whilst I didn’t particularly love it, it was still a thrilling read and the suspense was built cleverly right up to the end when we witnessed Carl acting upon his latest decision.
Thanks to Hutchinson / Penguin Australia for paperback copy in exchange of honest review