Hide this

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

The Crocodile Bird by Ruth Rendell
Loading...

The Crocodile Bird (1993)

by Ruth Rendell

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
515918,007 (3.86)27

None.

Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

Showing 1-5 of 9 (next | show all)
Liza, a young girl of sixteen must flee from her secluded home, the gatehouse of a great mansion, to avoid being questioned by the police about a crime that her mother Eve has just committed. She makes her way to her lover and proceeds to tell him, in the style of The Arabian Nights, the story of how she came to be in this situation, in the process revealing a life story full of intrigue and horror. Until then, Eve had tried her best to shield Liza from the world and all it's modern amenities, and most of what Liza knows about life is gleaned from the 19th century books available in the mansion. Liza looks just like Eve, and must find out whether she is a an exact copy of her mother in deed as well as in looks, or whether she can exercise her own free will. I found this tale quite gripping, enough so to include it among my favourite reads of the year, and the narration by Juliet Stephenson was of course excellent. ( )
1 vote Smiler69 | Dec 21, 2011 |
This book holds sinister secrets. A woman keeps her daughter shut off from the outside world. She has an unnatural attachment to Shrove, a house she doesn't own - a bond greater than she shares with any other person. She will do anything to keep her daughter sheltered within the semi-abandoned estate and refuses that there could be consequences in hers or her daughter's later life.

This is not a straightforward mystery and it isn't creepy in an upfront way either. The story reveals itself slowly, to shift your perception of good and evil in the characters and what terrible things they remember. ( )
1 vote sarah-e | Jan 27, 2011 |
An interesting scenario, dragged out a bit, and with a bit of a limp ending. Liza's early journey to the caravan got the story off to a good start and the mystery was set up well, but once we were back in the cottage the book's landscape seemed a bit limited. ( )
  jayne_charles | Aug 29, 2010 |
One of my favorite books! Ruth Rendell's novels are always suspenseful, but what I think she is best at is creating fascinating and complex characters that are all...a bit creepy. This story is about a young girl whose mother has secluded them in an isolated cottage away from essentially all contact with society. There are few people that visit... and half the ones that do are never to be seen or heard from again. A great mystery! ( )
  berrenss | Jul 13, 2010 |
What a scary little girl. ( )
  picardyrose | Aug 16, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 9 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Series (with order)
Canonical title
Information from the Finnish Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to the English one.
Original title
Information from the Finnish Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to the English one.
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Awards and honors
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
The world began to fall apart at nine in the evening.
Quotations
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Publisher series
Information from the Russian Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to the English one.

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

Book description
Haiku summary

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0440218659, Paperback)

A mother and a daughter live quietly in the rustic gatehouse of Shrove House, an isolated British estate. Their life seems perfectly ordinary except that daughter Liza has been kept isolated from the outside world for all of her sixteen years. And that he has seen her beautiful mother commit murder... more than once. Now, as the police come searching for a missing man, Liza's sheltered, strange world begins to fall apart. Piece by piece she will reveal her mother's tale of betrayal, desire, and obsession. Step-by-step we discover how much like mother, like daughter she is.

(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:34:57 -0400)

(see all 4 descriptions)

"When her mother, Eve, tells Liza that she must leave their remote home, the gatehouse of a country mansion, Liza is terrified. Although seventeen years of age, she has never been on a bus or a train, has never played with a child of her own age. She has almost no knowledge of a world described by her mother as evil and destructive. Their strange, enclosed life together is over because Eve has killed a man. And he is not the first. With 100 pounds in cash, Liza is cast adrift. However, she is not alone. There is one particular secret that she has kept from her mother - her love affair with a young man who worked in the big house. With him, gradually Liza learns about the world, about herself, and must come to terms with the possibility that the murderous violence of her mother may be present in her." -back cover.… (more)

» see all 2 descriptions

Quick Links

Swap Ebooks Audio
58 avail.
3 wanted
2 pay2 pay

Popular covers

Rating

Average: (3.86)
0.5
1
1.5
2 1
2.5 1
3 21
3.5 10
4 39
4.5 7
5 13

Audible.com

An edition of this book was published by Audible.com.

See editions

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

Help/FAQs | About | Privacy/Terms | Blog | Contact | LibraryThing.com | APIs | WikiThing | Common Knowledge | Legacy Libraries | 81,955,491 books!