Barbara Vine is a pseudonym of Ruth Rendell. A gripping, perceptive novel about a dysfunctional family and their adult but psychologically damaged son John, viewed through the eyes of Kerstin, a young Swedish nurse brought in to help the family manage John. Kerstin is quickly intrigued by the family’s flaws, and how they are treating the errant son, who is not, she thinks, schitzophrenic as they claim. Things go progressively wrong in the family, and John begins to emerge from the repressions he has been under.

I enjoyed reading this a great deal. ( )

Unusually well-written and plotted. I really enjoyed the sense of place and the gothic tone. ( )

This one I should have loved. Old English manor homes, labyrinths, libraries, etc... right up my alley. Didn't finish. I just didn't think it was all that good. Oh well. ( )

3 1/2 stars: Good.

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From the back cover: Swedish nurse Kerstin Kvist arrives at the vine covered Lydstep Old Hall to care for John Cosway, a former mathematical genius. He has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and is now kept under heavy sedation by his iron willed mother and four obsessive sisters. Initially beguiled by the sisters' raucous and entertaining social life, Kvist soon comes to believe their motivations may be more sinister. John is the sole heir of the immense Cosway estate, and as he takes his daily walks or sits quivering in the labyrinthine library, Kvist believes the rest of the family may be plotting their own ways of coming into the fortune.

The Minotaur is an elegant and gripping new novel that masterfully combines psychological suspense and Gothic horro. It is classic Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell)--an absolutely enthralling tale that keeps twisting and turning until the very last page.

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Barbara Vine is the pseudonym for Ruth Rendell when she writes psychological mysteries. This one was a good page turner, with many twists. Ultimately about people in a drudging, dead end life, desperate for a change... and one commits a crime to make that change. As with mysteries of this type, the build up is the entire book--the crime doesn't happen until the last few pages, and its barely discussed afterwards.

This was a good, but not great, story. Autism is treated as something unusual; I recognize it was not as well known at that time, but it still did not feel authentic in the story line.

A few quotes I liked:

"No milk either." I had stopped her just in time. The habit of putting milk into an infusion of [tea] leaves has always struck me as bizarre. I watched with relief as she passed me a large saucerless mug of neat brown tea, clear as the water of the Colne was in those days.

Since then I have learned that people marry for status, for security, for escape, because they have got into it and would find it very awkward and embarassing to get out of, and of course for money. ( )

Kerstin (pronounced ‘Shashtin’) Kvist is a Swedish nurse hired to care for schizophrenic John Cosway in an English country house. Soon after her arrival it becomes clear there is little for her to do other than accompany the silent Cosway on his walks and ensure he gets his medication. Living in the house are Cosway’s mother and his four adult sisters and, although it is the early 1960’s, the household is reminiscent of the Bennett’s in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in the way it is run and the obsession with getting at least one of the women ‘married off’.

Vine/Rendell is a great story teller and here she has weaved a story that, despite not being full of murders or chase scenes, did manage to capture my attention. Told in the first person narrative by Kerstin the tale is an intricate observation of a dysfunctional family and the few outsiders they deal with and is, in its quiet way, absorbing. The characters, though not terribly unique, are interesting enough and I would happily have immersed myself in the goings on at Lydstep Hall with a deal of relish if it weren’t for the fact this is a very poorly written book.

There are some horrendously annoying things here, made all the more difficult to swallow because a writer of Vine’s undoubted talent doesn’t, or didn’t used to, have to resort to them. Firstly there are the constant, unnecessary reminders within the text that the book is reminiscent of Jane Austen’s England. The story, indeed the writing itself, literally scream Austen-esque. Read the introduction of Mr Dunsford at the start of Chapter 9 and even if your only exposure to Jane Austen has been to see the movie Clueless you’ll get the reference and won’t need to be endlessly reminded with such clumsy methods as the narrator likening herself to Elizabeth Bennett being interrogated by Lady Catherine de Burgh.

Secondly, and even more annoying, are the vague references about big events still to happen. The narrator’s tale is told in the present day reminiscing about the events of her time spent in the Cosway household. It’s not a spoiler to suggest that the most dramatic event of the book takes place towards the end but until that point there are so many “if only I’d known then what was to come” lines that I would cheerfully have thrown the book at a wall if only it wasn’t so heavy. The written equivalent of a movie-maker’s Da Da Dunnnn has always been a bugbear of mine and what it did to this book was remove the last hint or suggestion of suspense.

Without that it was a pretty humdrum story about some people who were insular, isolated and a little odd but not nearly intriguing enough to carry an entire book of awkward prose. ( )