Rating: 
Summary: Enjoyable, but ultimately disappointing
Review: A disappointing Barbara Vine book is still quite an accomplishment. The characters in this one are very interesting, well-drawn and three-dimensional. The story is also interesting, but as I approached the ending, I began to realise that the surprise we're used to getting from Vine/Rendell (and let's face it, we expect this surprise as well as all the other aspects of a good novel) wasn't going to be that interesting or even surprising. The ending here is very weak. It doesn't really seem to follow from the rest of the book (and it's hard to believe that no one would have guessed; when a man is no longer sexually interested in his wife or any other woman, what do most people usually assume?) and it ends very abruptly, as if Vine had reached it too exhausted to go on any further.Anyone coming to Barbara Vine for the first time would be much better off getting A Fatal Inversion, House of Stairs or A Dark-Adapted Eye.
Rating: 
Summary: MY FIRST BARBARA VINE!
Review: A friend gave me her copy of "The Chimney Sweeper's Boy" and I was hooked from page 1. The numerous characters are all complex and fascinating--even the minor ones; the plot, although I guessed the "mystery-surprise," unfolds beautifully--I certainly do not want to tell you any of the twists and turns (& there are plenty)of this "psychological mystery;" the writing is graceful, but never calls attention to itself. This is a truly terrific story told wonderfully. I have already purchased my second Barbara Vine book and cannot wait to start it.
Rating:
Summary: MY FIRST BARBARA VINE!
Review: A friend gave me her copy of "The Chimney Sweeper's Boy" and I was hooked from page 1. The numerous characters are all complex and fascinating--even the minor ones; the plot, although I guessed the "mystery-surprise," unfolds beautifully--I certainly do not want to tell you any of the twists and turns (& there are plenty)of this "psychological mystery;" the writing is graceful, but never calls attention to itself. This is a truly terrific story told wonderfully. I have already purchased my second Barbara Vine book and cannot wait to start it.
Rating: 
Summary: Absorbing psychological drama
Review: As with most of Barbara Vine's novels, I found "The Chimney Sweeper's Boy" to be utterly intriguing. In fact, the only Vine book that disappointed me was "Anna's Book". Her latest includes her usual dark, brooding characters, yet we are drawn into their drama and are caught up in the mystery of who exactly Gerald Candless was. Another aspect of Vines' work that I find fascinating is her attention to setting. It could be said that Lundy House, the Candless' home by the sea, is almost a character itself. Granted, as some reviewers have already mentioned, some of the clues are too obvious, but it does not deter the fact that this book is an incredibly good read.
Rating:
Summary: Vine Climbs to the Top with "Chimney Sweeper's Boy"
Review: Barbara Vine is arguably one of the most prolific of contemporary writers and her creative genius is never more obvious than in "The Chimney Sweeper's Boy." (Vine is the pseudonym of author Ruth Rendell.) And in this novel, Vine departs from her "regular" thrillers and embarks on a different route from what we've come to expect from her. Granted, Vine's ability to capture her reader totally, as in her thrillers, is once again to the fore. In this book, famed writer Gerald Candless early on suffers a fatal heart attack and one of his daughters, Sarah, is persuaded to write a biography, a memoir of what it was like to be the daughter of such a famous writer. Thus begins the odyssey: she quickly discovers that Candless is not her father's real name. And what she unearths is at once chilling, emotionally trying, sentimental, and tragic. Sarah is in for a long haul. And Vine is at her best as she lays bear the souls of her principle characters. Perhaps what keeps the book alive--and the reader so absorbed--is Vine's penchant for capturing her audience completely. And while "Chimney's Sweeper's Boy" is not a Rendell-mystery, complete with police procedural revelations, it is a book that is compelling, almost impossible to put down. That is the beauty of the work, the genius of Vine's writing ability. Vine scores easily in this scholarly, sophisticated, yet readable, missive. The characters, in addition to Sarah, are complete and believable. Early on, Candless and his Girls play The Game, an esoteric, snobbish parlor contest. No rules are explained but the object is for the players to pass a scissors a certain way and to be able to explain the move, thus the "solution" to the riddle. Few solve it and Candless and company make buffoons of their guests (which is basically why they play it), belittling them for their inability to solve The Game. This turns out to be a metaphor for his own life and for Vine's intricately written and cleverly presented work. One of Vine's chief characteristics is the pace she applies to her works. There is never a doubt whether the author is in control of the plot development, her characters, or any other literary aspect. Nothing goes awry as she orchestrates the book's denouement and the reader's reactions. It is a treat to see such writing and to see such a writer display her command of her prose. In the Inspector Wexford novels, Rendell is content to stay within the bounds of police investigation and solution--and feels quite comfortable in doing so--and has created one of the best of current British mysteries, but when she lets loose her writing psyche as Vine, watch out! And in "Chimney Sweeper's Boy," she leaves no ash unturned!
Rating:
Summary: A great idea for a psychological mystery, underdeveloped
Review: Barbara Vine's talent for devising compelling characters and situations remains high in this new effort, but the tasty idea never blooms into a wonderful book. The effect on the family of a dead author when they learn he is not who he said he was is a perfect idea for a psychological thriller, and Vine starts off admirably. But the investigation doesn't so much come to a conclusion as peter out. In fact the denouement, told in the form of a manuscript submitted to a publisher, is at once so bland and yet unlikely that we are left with a very unsatisfying feeling. Even modest Vine is better than many other story-teller's work, but this is modest.
Rating:
Summary: Another fine novel about novel writing
Review: Earlier this summer I read Irving's A Widow for One Year in which most of the characters write novels that help them deal with their emotional traumas and fixations. Now with Vine's latest I have been treated to another tale of life becoming fiction and the consequences of continually re-inventing oneself. Although, at times this novel does begin to defeat itself in its presentation (the chapter epigrams with their allusions and big hints ruin many of the twists) I was completely hooked from beginning to end. Who cannot sympathize with Ursula's heartbreak and wish for her to have a second chance? Who cannot want her daughters to finally be free of their near hypnotic adoration of their father's memory and finally realize how their mother was cheated, deceived and abused? I don't find these characters predictable and disagree with the reader from Ohio that Vine's previous books are populated with unlikeable characters. I must say I don't understand people who read novels looking for people to like all the time. Good novel writing presents us with characters that are flawed and complex. I am continually surprised when people mistake dimension for the lack of it, that shallowness, stubbornness, pettiness, meanness for all the criticism they bring are actually character traits found in real people. In conclusion, I think that gay people will find this novel fairly transparent (the excerpt from Less Is More on the very first page is unfortunately too obvious), however incredibly insightful and true to life. Barbara Vine books always contain at least one gay character (sometimes gay and lesbian) and present gay people as human beings and not objects of ridicule or disgust. There is nothing "sensational" or "tabloid" in writing compassionately.
Rating:
Summary: Mostly riveting
Review: For about the first three-quarters of the novel, this is truly riveting stuff, on par with Vine's most celebrated works. The portrait of the Candless family is fascinating, especially in the way that the excerpts from Gerald Candless's novels feed into the main storyline. The final revelation, however, doesn't do justice to the rest of the novel. It's disturbing, to be sure, but it's disappointing as well--not just because it seems less surprising/shocking (at least to me) than the endings to some of Vine's other novels, but also because it appears far more contrived.
Rating:
Summary: Going Through a Phase
Review: I "discovered" Ruth Rendell some twenty-five years ago. I was overseas and books in English were hard to find and expensive when you could find them. From time to time, my mother would send me a carton of paperbacks that she had chosen from secondhand bookshops and library sales. She was guessing at what might interest me. The combination of her good judgment and my desperation for books of any kind meant that I usually read or at least started to read just about everything in the carton. One carton included Rendell's One Across, Two Down. I didn't read much detective fiction or murder mysteries, but I had gone through an Agatha Christie phase in my teens, and later I would go through a similar Sue Grafton phase. Ruth Rendell's book was unlike anything I had read. There was no hero ("protagonist," the author in The Chimney Sweeper's Boy would correct me) in the conventional sense. None of the characters was particularly likeable. I couldn't identify with any of them. But I was fascinated by the odd story and couldn't stop reading until I had finished. I continue to be a Rendell fan, but I prefer her work as Barbara Vine, the psychological thrillers with no hero. However, I have no patience for Inspector Wexford. This still leaves dozens of Rendell books for me to read, when I am in a rare mood for fiction. The Chimney Sweeper's Boy is a fine thriller. The characters are fascinating, the plot moves along like a pulp novel, and I really wanted to know what happens next. And like many thrillers and throw-away fiction, I didn't know what was going to happen until the author wanted me to know. I thought I knew several times, but I was wrong. Everything was tied up in a neat package at the end. Unfortunately, as with much fiction, The Chimney Sweeper's Boy doesn't bear scrutiny. As I stopped to think about the story after I was done, I became less satisfied. Real people wouldn't act like that, would they? And the shocking revelation didn't strike me as being quite as earth-shattering as the characters seemed to think it was. Come to think of it, I haven't much cared for the last few Rendell books I have read. Grasshopper was far too long and I actually found myself skimming the last third. The Blood Doctor was tedious. Can it be that I have come to the end of a twenty-five year Ruth Rendell phase?
Rating:
Summary: Not one of Vine's best, but...
Review: I agree with other readers: in this book the great mystery is in fact no big mystery, and I should say that the way in which some situations (like the "Adam" situation) are solved is rather unsatisfactory, but the psychological development of her characters is as interesting as ever, and the book is absorbing enough, though certainly not on a par with, for example, A Dark Adapted Eye or A Fatal Inversion.
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