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cattytrona's review against another edition
3.0
Really solid mystery. Did exactly what I love in a detective novel, which is: giving me all the clues I need to solve everything, whilst being obscure enough in its solution that I don’t solve it until the reveal. Which allows for some fun hindsight detection, but also means the actual reading experience is suspenseful and you’re right there with the detectives. Plus bonus points for some of the clues not feeling like clues I guess because of their psychological character-building natures — good efficiency .
If I was a publisher and I wanted to be rich, I would republish this book, and some other Millars too, because I understand them to be similar in tone. But I would specifically publish them with charcoal/black covers with like a vague greyscale image or pictogram on it — in this case, probably a phone. And then I would make sure the title was in a sans serif font in some kind electric shade of colour. And then, the pièce de résistance, I would go for a byline like ‘gillian flynn meets agatha christie’ or ‘before gone girl there was…’ above the title. And then I’d stick it in a W H Smiths. And it wouldn’t be particularly accurate, but at least these books/this book is pretty good, and I think the fans would be satisfied.
If I was a publisher and I wanted to be rich, I would republish this book, and some other Millars too, because I understand them to be similar in tone. But I would specifically publish them with charcoal/black covers with like a vague greyscale image or pictogram on it — in this case, probably a phone. And then I would make sure the title was in a sans serif font in some kind electric shade of colour. And then, the pièce de résistance, I would go for a byline like ‘gillian flynn meets agatha christie’ or ‘before gone girl there was…’ above the title. And then I’d stick it in a W H Smiths. And it wouldn’t be particularly accurate, but at least these books/this book is pretty good, and I think the fans would be satisfied.
ldea's review against another edition
3.0
A fast-paced, classic thriller marred by homophobia and a bit of misogyny. In a shocking twist one of the characters turns out to be, gasp, gay and, naturally, dies a tragic gay death, after which someone says with the ring of truth, "he's better off." Welp. The main spinster is also treated as an object of pity who could solve the flaws in her character if she just got married--although possibly that part was meant to be ironic.
bev_reads_mysteries's review against another edition
4.0
Beast in View is a suspenseful psychological thriller by Margaret Millar. Winner of the 1956 Edgar Award for Best Novel and also named one of the Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time by the Mystery Writers of America, the novel may be a bit dated in its views of homosexuality and use certain psychological terms but it still packs quite a punch.
At thirty, Helen Clarvoe may be rich but she is lonely. Her only visitors are the staff at the hotel where she lives and her only phone calls come from a stranger. A stranger whose quiet, compelling voice lures the aloof and financially secure Miss Clarvoe into a world of pornography, vengeance, madness and murder...A stranger who winds up being not so unknown after all. And soon Miss Clarvoe is not the only one to receive the disturbing phone calls--her mother and brother become targets as well.
Miss Clarvoe calls upon the family lawyer to help her track down the voice on the phone. At first Paul Blackshear is reluctant to get involved, but something about Miss Clarvoe and the atmosphere surrounding her pulls him in. He finds himself following a trail through a modeling school and a photography studio which eventually leads him to an old school friend of Miss Clarvoe's--Evelyn Merrick. One time best friend and, more recently, short-term wife of Helen's brother Douglas. Has Evelyn decided that she must take revenge for Helen's supposed betrayal and her unfulfilled marriage?
Millar weaves a very convincing tale of the disintegrating mind. She plainly shows her hand--revealing the seeds that will grow into the full-fledged psychological trauma and yet she still fooled me. I didn't see the final twist coming and I should have. It was all there. A masterful tale that fully deserved the Edgar--and fully deserves to be read today for the classic it is.
At thirty, Helen Clarvoe may be rich but she is lonely. Her only visitors are the staff at the hotel where she lives and her only phone calls come from a stranger. A stranger whose quiet, compelling voice lures the aloof and financially secure Miss Clarvoe into a world of pornography, vengeance, madness and murder...A stranger who winds up being not so unknown after all. And soon Miss Clarvoe is not the only one to receive the disturbing phone calls--her mother and brother become targets as well.
Miss Clarvoe calls upon the family lawyer to help her track down the voice on the phone. At first Paul Blackshear is reluctant to get involved, but something about Miss Clarvoe and the atmosphere surrounding her pulls him in. He finds himself following a trail through a modeling school and a photography studio which eventually leads him to an old school friend of Miss Clarvoe's--Evelyn Merrick. One time best friend and, more recently, short-term wife of Helen's brother Douglas. Has Evelyn decided that she must take revenge for Helen's supposed betrayal and her unfulfilled marriage?
Millar weaves a very convincing tale of the disintegrating mind. She plainly shows her hand--revealing the seeds that will grow into the full-fledged psychological trauma and yet she still fooled me. I didn't see the final twist coming and I should have. It was all there. A masterful tale that fully deserved the Edgar--and fully deserves to be read today for the classic it is.
zzzrevel's review against another edition
4.0
This one is pretty good. I do like the author's writing style.
Most of the first half of the book has some wry humor
in it, whether intentional or not I could not tell. Later
on though it seemed a bit more serious in tone and
the twist ending was pretty cool.
Very enjoyable.
Most of the first half of the book has some wry humor
in it, whether intentional or not I could not tell. Later
on though it seemed a bit more serious in tone and
the twist ending was pretty cool.
Very enjoyable.
jakewritesbooks's review against another edition
4.0
This book edged out Patricia Highsmith’s legendary The Talented Mr. Ripley for the 1957 Edgar Award. Both of them are more psychological thrillers than mysteries. Both were written by world class female crime writers, maybe 1 and 1a of the genre.
Yet while Patricia Highsmith’s work has endured (she’s the only woman whose works have been republished by the Everyman’s Library), Millar’s were largely forgotten for decades. This is likely due to two things: 1. Being unfairly overshadowed by her husband Kenneth Millar (aka Ross Macdonald) and 2. Her volume of worked dead ended in 1970 and by the time she started writing again in the 80s, her name had lost its luster. Some writers got a second life through Vintage Crime/Black Lizard reprints but it doesn’t seem like she was one.
And that’s a shame because, as in my review of Dorothy Hughes, she predates the Gillian Flynn era of the female-written and female-driven psycho thriller. And their books are much better than what we get today. I wouldn’t put Beast in View ahead of The Talented Mr. Ripley but it’s a damn good book in its own right, worthy of awards.
This one is twisted and like the best thrillers, it left me feeling physically uncomfortable at times. There are few likable characters. But it is a humane thriller that gets to the tension of trying to understand why people do the things they do.
I really can’t say more about the plot without spoiling so two more thoughts…
I’ve written before about how much I hate the “tragic homosexuality” trope so if that one is not your bag or is triggering, give this a hard pass.
The twist may be obvious but it’s not the twist that makes the novel, it’s how Millar gets us there. And that in and of itself was worth the price fo admission for me.
Yet while Patricia Highsmith’s work has endured (she’s the only woman whose works have been republished by the Everyman’s Library), Millar’s were largely forgotten for decades. This is likely due to two things: 1. Being unfairly overshadowed by her husband Kenneth Millar (aka Ross Macdonald) and 2. Her volume of worked dead ended in 1970 and by the time she started writing again in the 80s, her name had lost its luster. Some writers got a second life through Vintage Crime/Black Lizard reprints but it doesn’t seem like she was one.
And that’s a shame because, as in my review of Dorothy Hughes, she predates the Gillian Flynn era of the female-written and female-driven psycho thriller. And their books are much better than what we get today. I wouldn’t put Beast in View ahead of The Talented Mr. Ripley but it’s a damn good book in its own right, worthy of awards.
This one is twisted and like the best thrillers, it left me feeling physically uncomfortable at times. There are few likable characters. But it is a humane thriller that gets to the tension of trying to understand why people do the things they do.
I really can’t say more about the plot without spoiling so two more thoughts…
I’ve written before about how much I hate the “tragic homosexuality” trope so if that one is not your bag or is triggering, give this a hard pass.
The twist may be obvious but it’s not the twist that makes the novel, it’s how Millar gets us there. And that in and of itself was worth the price fo admission for me.
lateromantic's review against another edition
5.0
A really interesting book, a great look into 50s attitudes (especially queer-coding and mental health which it's surprisingly explicit about) and also a fun, fast-paced mystery with great setup and payoff.
cchartier's review against another edition
4.0
Very strange, but quite good. Rather than being a thriller it's more of a psychological study. The ending, the twist, is unfulfilling, but this was written in 1955-it's a prototype of twists e've come to expect. The most interesting thing is not so much the plot, but the well sketched personalities and deep interior lives of every character, even minor ones.
plantbirdwoman's review against another edition
4.0
Many years ago, around the 1980s as I recall, I was a huge fan of the writing of Ross Macdonald, especially his series featuring hard-boiled detective Lew Archer. During that time, I think I must have read all or most of those books and enjoyed every one. Little did I realize at the time that Macdonald was married to an acclaimed writer of psychological thrillers named Margaret Millar. Millar's books were much-honored and her book Beast in View won the Edgar Award as the best mystery book of the year in 1956. There was a reference to her book in an article I read recently about classic mysteries and I was intrigued. The fact that she was married to Macdonald caught my attention, but the book sounded interesting and I decided to make Millar's acquaintance.
The book fully lives up to the article's praise of it. It is a tightly plotted, suspenseful tale with a surprising twist at the end. It evinces a feeling of the sinister throughout. Millar obviously knew what she was doing.
She gives us thirty-year-old Helen Clarvoe, living alone in a residence hotel in Los Angeles. Helen was heiress to a small fortune, which allowed her to eschew employment as a way of sustaining herself. The source of her inheritance is never really explained but is assumed to be her dead father. Her mother and younger brother Douglas are both still alive but she is estranged from them; again, we don't really know why. Even though she only lives a few miles away from the family home where both of her relatives live, Helen doesn't talk to them for months at a time.
Helen is a singularly solitary figure with no known friends and no regular human contacts other than the people who work at the hotel. And she is frightened. She has been receiving bizarre phone calls and, even though there is no overt threat, she feels threatened by them. The caller is someone who insists that Helen knows her but Helen cannot recognize the name.
She has no one she can turn to, but, eventually, she thinks of the investment counselor who advised her father and now advises her. She contacts Paul Blackshear and asks him to investigate. He is reluctant since private investigation is way beyond his skill set, but Helen seems so desperate that he finally agrees to do what he can.
As he wades into the mystery, Blackshear begins to realize that something very strange is happening here. He traces the person who is named as the caller fairly easily and he talks to Helen's mother and brother but the mystery only deepens. As he seeks an answer to the puzzle, he sees that there is a predatory and treacherous nature behind it all, but what exactly is the identity of that nature?
Millar has some truly marvelous lines scattered throughout the book. This one stands out for me, an observation by Blackshear as he meets with Helen:
And with that line we know that perhaps all is not quite as it seems with Helen.
In another encounter, we get a description of the messages relayed by the mystery caller:
Innuendo can be a powerful weapon indeed.
My only real criticism of the book is that I would have liked more exposition regarding just what led Helen to be the person she is. We are left to fill in the blanks with our own imaginations and I assume that was intentional by the author, but I wish she would have fleshed out that part of the story just a bit more.
By the way, the book that Millar beat out for the Edgar Award in 1956? The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.
The book fully lives up to the article's praise of it. It is a tightly plotted, suspenseful tale with a surprising twist at the end. It evinces a feeling of the sinister throughout. Millar obviously knew what she was doing.
She gives us thirty-year-old Helen Clarvoe, living alone in a residence hotel in Los Angeles. Helen was heiress to a small fortune, which allowed her to eschew employment as a way of sustaining herself. The source of her inheritance is never really explained but is assumed to be her dead father. Her mother and younger brother Douglas are both still alive but she is estranged from them; again, we don't really know why. Even though she only lives a few miles away from the family home where both of her relatives live, Helen doesn't talk to them for months at a time.
Helen is a singularly solitary figure with no known friends and no regular human contacts other than the people who work at the hotel. And she is frightened. She has been receiving bizarre phone calls and, even though there is no overt threat, she feels threatened by them. The caller is someone who insists that Helen knows her but Helen cannot recognize the name.
She has no one she can turn to, but, eventually, she thinks of the investment counselor who advised her father and now advises her. She contacts Paul Blackshear and asks him to investigate. He is reluctant since private investigation is way beyond his skill set, but Helen seems so desperate that he finally agrees to do what he can.
As he wades into the mystery, Blackshear begins to realize that something very strange is happening here. He traces the person who is named as the caller fairly easily and he talks to Helen's mother and brother but the mystery only deepens. As he seeks an answer to the puzzle, he sees that there is a predatory and treacherous nature behind it all, but what exactly is the identity of that nature?
Millar has some truly marvelous lines scattered throughout the book. This one stands out for me, an observation by Blackshear as he meets with Helen:
Blackshear felt a great pity for her not because of her tears but because of all the struggle it had taken to produce them.
And with that line we know that perhaps all is not quite as it seems with Helen.
In another encounter, we get a description of the messages relayed by the mystery caller:
"She's crafty, she hasn't had to do any of the destroying herself. She just throws in the bone and lets the dogs fight each other over it. And there's usually some meat of truth on the bone."
Innuendo can be a powerful weapon indeed.
My only real criticism of the book is that I would have liked more exposition regarding just what led Helen to be the person she is. We are left to fill in the blanks with our own imaginations and I assume that was intentional by the author, but I wish she would have fleshed out that part of the story just a bit more.
By the way, the book that Millar beat out for the Edgar Award in 1956? The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.
neven's review against another edition
5.0
Hell yeah. A quick, instantly gripping, original little thriller. It’s more disturbing than I expected, and it has real feeling for all of its characters.