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Read A Fatal Inversion (1992)

A Fatal Inversion (1992)

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Genre
Rating
3.97 of 5 Votes: 4
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ISBN
0140158618 (ISBN13: 9780140158618)
Language
English
Publisher
penguin canada

A Fatal Inversion (1992) - Plot & Excerpts

In A Fatal Inversion, by Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine, we meet a group of young people in Suffolk in the very hot summer of 1976. There is Adam, who has inherited a large home from his great-uncle; Zosie, a waif of a woman for whom Adam and his home is a refuge from the world; Rufus, the handsome medical student who just wants to spend some time drinking and smoking pot; Shiva, a transplanted Indian with self-esteem problems; and Vivien, who is searching for the perfect commune in which to grow. These five young people spend their summer lazily, but ten years later, the bodies of a woman and an infant are discovered in an animal cemetery attached to the house. Who are those corpses, and what do the five young people have to do with them?.... I always enjoy “Barbara Vine” novels, as they tend to be more in the line of psychological portraits of interesting individuals than mysteries per se, and of course Ruth Rendell is always a treat to read under any pen name! I liked the way this novel evoked a particular place and time, quite far removed from us now but still resonating with the way people in their late teens and early 20s regard life. Recommended!

This was a sight-unseen Bookcrossing book (chosen on the basis of the first sentence). I'm not a reader of mysteries generally; I'd heard of Barbara Vine and knew it was one of Ruth Rendell's pen-names, but I'd never read any. After a few recent duds, it's good to feel you're in the hands of a master storyteller from the first page (and indeed the first sentence). It's not so much a whodunnit as a whydunnit, and even a whatdidtheydo. A bleak little tale, with clues and red herrings very cleverly scattered through it. The viewpoint switches effectively between the three main characters, each with their store of regret and guilt poisoning their life in different ways. She allows you to figure out part of the story fairly easily, but I really didn't see the final twist coming. Perhaps a bit too neat, but it adds a final note of grim humour. Don't read this if you want to like the main characters; nobody comes out of it well, except for one unlucky victim. Otherwise, it's a great choice for a summer read, and I'll look out for more from her.

What do You think about A Fatal Inversion (1992)?

Forgive the title, I thought, it's one of her first, you know you love her. And a book about a vaguely druggy 19 year old unexpectedly inheriting a vast English manor, populating it with friends and strangers, that's already a yes please. Then I spent the first half of the book yelling at it: stop repeating yourself, stop giving entire pages to describe a bloody copse, we've seen woods, even the deciduous forests you do describe particularly well, if endlessly - when I hit a patch of 5 pages including use of the word "ironical", I very nearly threw the book out the window. But the story hooked me despite, and while a more clever reader could have seen the twist at the end coming at them head on, there's me, mouth gaping, thinking "oh, I loved this," which I didn't. But worth slogging through the first half to get to the second, which is almost never the case!
—Gila Gila

I was drawn into this murder mystery. It was a great experience - listening to the book during my daily jogs. Am glad that I listened to the audio version because otherwise I would have just rushed through the book, in my usual speed-reading mode, sometimes even missing certain aspects. A wonderful psychological thriller, which shows how even gentle, normal people can commit crimes, if circumstances arise. I loved the descriptions of Acalpamos (not sure of the spelling) and wished i owned it. I would have loved a remote bungalow in the wilderness as a holiday home. I was drawn into the lives of Adam, Rufus, Zosie, Shiva and Vivian for the past few days.
—Ahtims

This is one of Barbara Vine's earlier richly crafted novels. Her writing is elegant and skillfully constructed. "A Fatal Inversion" is not an ordinary mystery with a familiar plot, it is a chilling psychological study which gives the reader insight into a horrifying murder. It is compelling and certainly thought-provoking.A landowner in the English countryside discovers an old pet cemetery on his vast property, where he finds human bones also buried. This fact and the subsequent police investigation set this story into motion. The manor house had been inherited by a nineteen year old young man previously. During an idyllic summer, he and a group of young people lived a carefree, irresponsible existence there, selling household contents to provide money for sustenance snd entertainment. It was here that the murder occured, which is evident at the outset of this book. Vine has masterfully woven this suspenseful tale back and forth from that summer to a dozen years later when the surviving members fear revelation. Character development is richly drawn, adding to the atmosphere of tension.
—Barbara

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