Keys to the Street, The

Rating:
Summary: Ruth Rendell at her best
Review: I thought this book was marvelous. I have read all of Rendell's books and this has got to be one of the best. Her characters are vivid and real, and the plotline was amazing, I could not wait to find out who Carl really was. Usually Rendell gives us charactes that don't command much caring, but I really felt for the girl. A must read for mystery fans.

Rating:
Summary: Keys? What Keys?
Review: I'm quickly becoming an avid Ruth Rendell fan and after a slow beginning, gradually got into this book. But, I have to ask: What the heck does the title mean? And who was the killer? Am I dense? How was he able to hoist his victims onto the spikes? These are questions I simply must have the answers to so I can sleep at night... if someone out there can supply them, please do! I do agree with another reviewer that her attention to "geographical minutae" gets a bit laborious at times and I did skip through several paragraphs of tedious description. Perhaps I missed a vital clue as to the identity of the killer? My favorite Rendell novel so far is A Sight for Sore Eyes. Check it out for purely venomous, evil characters! I've never read a better comeuppance in my life.

Rating:
Summary: An OK Read
Review: Keys To The Street seemed more like a Barbara Vine book than a Ruth Rendell: less emphasis on the crime and its solution and more attention to nuances of character and setting. The heroine's passivity was a hump to get over, and the ending wasn't very imaginative. Nevertheless, Rendell writes clear sentences and in this day and age that's an accomplishment. The main plot device, a bone marrow donor trying to extricate herself from an abusive relationship and becoming involved with the recipient was intriguing.

Rating:
Summary: Another Winner
Review: Ruth Rendell has done it again. I got out my map of London to pinpoint the location as she described the streets around Regent's Park. I was there some years ago, but had forgotten just how it is laid out.

Her characters were wonderfully complicated as usual. They weren't quite what they seemed. Mary was rather naive and sheltered, but believable. I was happy she could defy her boyfriend, Alstair, who came across as a control freak. I liked the way Roman and his reasons for being on the streets were explained not all at once, but gradually. If only we knew the stories behind those we see on the streets we might feel compassion towards them.

Mr. Bean, the dog walker, was great as a snobbish ex-servant. He was just eccentric enough to make you wonder how many more are there like him?

Rating:
Summary: Street people, druggies, S&M, etc.
Review: The novel has a complex plot that moves from character to character. I would suggest that the previous reviewer should re-read the last chapter. There are a number of interwoven plots. There is Mary Jago, escaping from an abusive boyfriend, who thinks she has found a new love; Roman, victim of a tragedy, who has dropped out of life to sleep on the streets; Bean, a 70-year old ex-butler to a man who liked to be beaten, who now works as a dog walker to supplement his small pension; Hob, a druggy who earns a living as an enforcer for drug dealers; Detective Inspector Marnock, who investigates various murders that are committed; an unknown impaler who is killing street people; and an assortment of other characters plus a large number of dogs. Some people like dogs and some people don't, but be careful how you treat them because they have friends who may take revenge in unexpected ways.

The setting is the Regent Park area of London. The gates are closed at night except to residents who have keys, but various other people find their way past the gates. Several people are murdered and their bodies impaled on spiked fences, but that is just one of the plots. There is drug dealing, blackmail, muggings, and there is Mary Jago trying to escape from her ex-boyfriend and find a new life.

The plot takes some surprising twists and turns. Some people get what they deserve, but the abusive ex-boyfriend seems to walk away unscathed (except that he lost his chance with a rich heiress). Perhaps Marnock should have named the killer on the last page instead of making readers figure it out from the clues given, but that means you have to read the book carefully.

Rating:
Summary: Street people, druggies, S&M, etc.
Review: The novel has a complex plot that moves from character to character. I would suggest that the previous reviewer should re-read the last chapter. There are a number of interwoven plots. There is Mary Jago, escaping from an abusive boyfriend, who thinks she has found a new love; Roman, victim of a tragedy, who has dropped out of life to sleep on the streets; Bean, a 70-year old ex-butler to a man who liked to be beaten, who now works as a dog walker to supplement his small pension; Hob, a druggy who earns a living as an enforcer for drug dealers; Detective Inspector Marnock, who investigates various murders that are committed; an unknown impaler who is killing street people; and an assortment of other characters plus a large number of dogs. Some people like dogs and some people don't, but be careful how you treat them because they have friends who may take revenge in unexpected ways.

The setting is the Regent Park area of London. The gates are closed at night except to residents who have keys, but various other people find their way past the gates. Several people are murdered and their bodies impaled on spiked fences, but that is just one of the plots. There is drug dealing, blackmail, muggings, and there is Mary Jago trying to escape from her ex-boyfriend and find a new life.

The plot takes some surprising twists and turns. Some people get what they deserve, but the abusive ex-boyfriend seems to walk away unscathed (except that he lost his chance with a rich heiress). Perhaps Marnock should have named the killer on the last page instead of making readers figure it out from the clues given, but that means you have to read the book carefully.

Rating:
Summary: A joy to read. Yet another excellent book
Review: This novel is rather like a symbolic microcosm of a solar system. That is the only way I can find to describe it. All that characters' lives go around in their own orbit, but occasionally they meet, those orbits cross, and each is influenced by this meeting in some way, be it good or bad, and they carry on once more, their paths forever altered slightly, or maybe not so slightly. Because this is Rendell's world, and in Rendell's world those planets don't always just cross, they collide.

The main plot, I suppose, centres on Mary Jago, a young woman living in London. Mary has donated her own bone marrow to save the lie of a stranger. This generous act of kindness lead directly to the break-up of her relationship with the despiseable Alistair, and she moves out, taking up residence in a house on the edge of Regent's Park, looking after it while the owners are on holiday. However, soon, the man whose live she has saved will alter her own life irrevocably for ever.

Inhabiting Regent's Park (which, I suppose, would be the Sun of the earlier analogy) are the dropouts, the street-people, forgotten and ignored by society, until a vicious killer starts targeting them, leaving their bodies impaled upon the railings that border the park. Rendell creates several of these misfits, the most important one, I suppose, being Roman, a man who took to the streets, leaving behind his past and possessions, when his life was shattered upon the deaths of his wife and young children in a horrific accident. He is particularly interesting.

Then there is Bean, a retired butler-turned-dog-walker who roams the park every day exercising his canine clients, who despises the tramps who take refuge there. And then, most sinister of all, there is Hob, a hopeless drug addict living nearby in a rented flat, who is prepared to carry out acts of varying violence in return for very welcome payment...

I've never read a novel quite like this before, and I doubt that I will again. It is flawless in every way. A book so astoundingly good that I have now read it three times (remarkable, considering that I am rarely even prepared to set time by to re-read a book even once). But, then, almost all Rendell's books have this effect upon me. She has a prose style like no other writer today. It is entirely without emotions, pretension, or anything else, and yet it is powerful and gripping. She doesn't fill her books with unnecessary description - but when she does do descriptions, they are like gems thrown in a buskers case - instead creating a palpable sense of atmosphere and soon-to-be-destroyed normality. She has a brilliant sense of place, making London d seem claustrophobic and terrifying, and I am almost sure that If I suddenly found myself in Regent's Park I would quicken my step distinctly through irrational and superfluous fear entirely of Rendell's creating.

The characters she creates are drawn brilliantly, and are absolutely fascinating, every single one of them, so much so that I would gladly carry on reading about them if this book were even more than thrice its length. I want to know everything about them. The way they interact, each story occasionally connecting with one another, is also fascinating, and Rendell manages to examine brilliantly notions about effects and consequences.

"The Keys to the Street" (a title of genius!) is excellent. The whole thing sparkles with darkness, and holds a subtle originality that, along with other aspects, demonstrate clearly why Ruth Rendell is to be treasured.

Rating:
Summary: Read something else
Review: This plot was unbelievable, the ending even worse. This was the first Ruth Rendell I've read and I'm told by my book club counterparts that she's an excellent author. If that's really the case I would recommend starting with some other books of hers because this one was lame.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining mystery that keeps you guessing.
Review: This was the first Ruth Rendell book I have read. I enjoyed it greatly and found myself caring about the characters. What really struck me were the unpredictable twists and turns towards the end. Finally a modern mystery where I could enjoy being surprised! I look forward to reading more of Rendell's books.