King Solomon's Carpet (original 1991; edition 1991)

by Barbara Vine (Author)

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Fiction. Mystery. HTML: *From an Edgar Award�??winning author: Murder intrudes on a student's secret history of the London Underground in this "brilliantly unexpected" mystery (The Times, London).* Jarvis Stringer is a young man of many peculiarities, but no obsession has taken hold quite like that of writing the strange and twisting history of the London Underground. To finance his project, he rents out cheap rooms in the long-disused West Hampstead schoolhouse he inherited�??a crumbling monument to morbid local lore. The boarders, each eking out their invisible lives above�??and beneath�??the city's surface, are a collection of strays, waifs, subway buskers, and loners, who are raising the concern of Jarvis's relatives and more proper neighbors. But even Jarvis has become suspicious. One of his outcasts may be a killer who's plotting something unforgettable and catastrophic�??and Jarvis himself has unwittingly become a conspirator. "A jolting novel of psychological suspense," King Solomon's Carpet was the recipient of the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award (The New York Times Book Review… (more)

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Member:	Eschwa
Title:	King Solomon's Carpet
Authors:	Barbara Vine (Author)
Info:	VIKING (1991), Edition: First Edition, 368 pages
Collections:	Read but unowned
Rating:
Tags:	mystery

Work Information

King Solomon's Carpet by Barbara Vine (1991)

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Jarvis is a bit of an eccentric: having inherited an old school after his father’s suicide by hanging there, he picks up various people whom he meets and gives them rooms in which to live cheaply. His primary focus is on underground transit systems - the Tube in London of course, BART in the Bay Area, the Metro in France (and Montreal), and so on; he finances trips to these various places by renting the rooms in the school. Some of the characters he has chosen, however, are far more dangerous than he can know…. Barbara Vine is, of course, Ruth Rendell’s pseudonym which she used for her more psychological suspense tales, and "King Solomon’s Carpet" is no exception. In some ways not very much happens here, and what *does* happen here takes its sweet time to occur, but one doesn’t read Barbara Vine for thrilling adventures, one reads her for her deep characterizations of human flaws and grandeurs, small moments of emotional truth and odd bits of triumph in a daily, humdrum life. Lovely stuff. (

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thefirstalicat | Jan 29, 2018 |

I didn't really get into this book. It took me a while to figure out who all the characters were and how they all fit together. Once I did that, the book flowed much better for me as it switched from character to character.

Alice's character really annoyed me. She had no resolve, dedication, or personal strength. She gave up on every single decision she ever made. She couldn't rely on herself; she was always looking for someone else for direction, strength, encouragement, fulfillment...basically for everything. Very NON-self-sufficient.

There were parts of this book I really enjoyed. I thought Jasper was a very interesting character. I really enjoyed the bits about the London Underground and all the little stories that were included-however, they almost seemed to be teasing you with them and not telling the whole story.

I was disappointed that we never really discovered what Axel's motivation was. It was this question just dangling there at the end of the book. An interesting read, though not my favorite. (

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jennannej | Jul 13, 2017 |

I should have trusted my instinct (which was that I wouldn't like another Barbara Vine book) but I was fooled by the blurb saying it was a modern-day take on Conrad's Secret Agent which I enjoyed immensely. Now that I have finished, I can somewhat comprehend that description but while Conrad's story thrilled & fascinated me, this one mostly bored me. It is a "psychological thriller"; apparently that means it is about people's thoughts & emotions with very little action (and most of that occurring off-stage). The one person in whose thoughts I would have been interested was of course the one whose thoughts and motivations are not given. And that is one of my biggest complaints of all -- in the end, there is no resolution or explanation. I could have put up with all the character-driven stuff if the plot had had some point! Why did Axel want to bomb the tube? Did it have something to do with his sister or was he driven by some anarchist philosophy or what?

Disappointing... (

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leslie.98 | Mar 15, 2017 |

Dire. Remarkably boring and a waste of my time. I bet she phoned this one in. She rang her agent and dictated it to the secretary. (

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Lukerik | Nov 1, 2015 |

The blurb on the back of this book stated that 'towards the end the tension is almost suffocating'. Absolutely true - I was experiencing considerable tension as I wondered if I had spent £7.99 on a book in which nothing was actually going to happen. So much time was spent creating 'atmosphere' that the plot was all but forgotten. A bit too arty and up-its-own-backside for my liking. (

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jayne_charles | Aug 28, 2010 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Vine, Barbara	—	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Porcelĳn, Rifke	—	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Porter, Davina	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

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Penguin Audiobooks (PEN 153)

▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Crime Writers' Association Awards (Winner – Gold Dagger – 1991)

Palle Rosenkrantz Prisen (1993)

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The Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read (Crime)

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To the men and women who work for London Transport Underground; and to those who make music in its tunnels.

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A great many things that other people did all the time she had never done.

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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

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▾Book descriptions

Fiction. Mystery. HTML:

From an Edgar Award�??winning author: Murder intrudes on a student's secret history of the London Underground in this "brilliantly unexpected" mystery (The Times, London).

Jarvis Stringer is a young man of many peculiarities, but no obsession has taken hold quite like that of writing the strange and twisting history of the London Underground. To finance his project, he rents out cheap rooms in the long-disused West Hampstead schoolhouse he inherited�??a crumbling monument to morbid local lore.

The boarders, each eking out their invisible lives above�??and beneath�??the city's surface, are a collection of strays, waifs, subway buskers, and loners, who are raising the concern of Jarvis's relatives and more proper neighbors. But even Jarvis has become suspicious. One of his outcasts may be a killer who's plotting something unforgettable and catastrophic�??and Jarvis himself has unwittingly become a conspirator.

"A jolting novel of psychological suspense," King Solomon's Carpet was the recipient of the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award (The New York Times Book Review

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