Animosity : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Subtle tale of love, obsession, betrayal and murder
Review: "Amimosity" is the story of Ross Marteau, a sculptor noted for his nude sculptures, who becomes entwined in the lives of two sisters when they commission him to do a sculpture of Leda, the younger sister. Ross finds that this commission will the biggest challenge of his career for Leda is not the flawless beauty she appears to be at first glance. This is a story where no one is who they seem to be and nothing that occurs can be accepted at face value.

I was most impressed with the soft voice in which Mr. Lindsey tells this story. You are constantly being thrown curves but, while unsettling, none of them were jarring. The story in itself is jarring, but the subtle way in which it is written makes it a poignant tale of love, murder, obsession and betrayal.

Mr. Lindsey joins the ranks of Joe R. Lansdale and Stephen Booth in creating a sense of place. You will find yourself totally immersed in the small town in Texas and the Left Bank of Paris. I don't like hot climates, but while reading this book, I actually wanted to be in that Texas town with its heat, humidity and lush landscape. Mr. Lindsey has also captured the romance and beauty of Paris that has drawn people to that magical city for years.

The last chapter of this book is a fitting end to a special book. I am still haunted by the last few pages.

Rating:
Summary: Texas, Hitchcock-style
Review: David Lindsey has a very good reputation, as far as I'm concerned, as a mystery writer. His books are moody, slowly paced, wonderfully written, and very quirky and atmospheric. When he started he concentrated on a detective in Houston (I think) named Stuart Haydon, but recently many of his books have been about other characters, and some (notably Mercy) have been true masterpieces of the mystery genre, and very good as literate novels, to boot.

Which brings us to the present book, Animosity. This isn't really a mystery novel at all, at least in so far as there's a mystery involved. For the first half of the book, the plot follows Ross Marteau, a commercial sculptor who has had a particularly nasty breakup with his girlfriend in Paris, and moves back to San Rafael, Texas, where he is from. There he is approached by two sisters in a roundabout way. The younger of the two, hauntingly beautiful but deformed by a hunchback, wants him to make a nude sculpture of her. The other of the sisters he begins an affair with. Suddenly things derail, and with the change in the story, the whole thing turns into a rollercoaster ride.

I won't tell you anything further except to tell you that the plot is very Hitchcockian, or perhaps Cohen Brothers, in flavor. Lindsey is so good at forming pictures in your head that it almost plays as a movie.

I had two complaints about the book. One, I didn't like the ending. I can't tell you what the ending is, or why I didn't like it, but I didn't. The other is that the story takes a bit long to get going. I was beginning to wonder if anything ever would happen when it did.

Given that, this is a good book, and worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: A well-written mediocrity
Review: David Lindsey has established himself as a pretty good mystery writer over the years, telling dark tales that usually are good if not exceptional. His gift for description gives his stories a quality that with other writers may be thought of as slow; with Lindsey, however, this novels do not move slowly, but serenely.

In this story, sculptor Ross Marteau has just returned to his Texas home from Paris, where his most recent relationship has ended rather badly. Soon, he gets involved with a pair of sisters, one beautiful and mysterious, the other suffering from a deformity that takes away from her own beauty. It is obvious that the two women are out to manipulate Marteau, but he blindly allows himself to be drawn into their web.

Although Lindsey's descriptive abilities are as good as ever, his plot is weak and not very original. There are story elements here from a number of works, including Body Heat and the Grifters. The truly clever plot twist that I kept longing for, the one that would say that these plot cliches are about to be turned into something new and delightful, never comes. Add to that a main character who rather densely allows himself to be manipulated and rarely takes action (until the end of the story), and there is a little to be desired here.

I have always looked forward to Lindsey's books, which makes this book all that more of a disappointment. While his talent offers some redemption, this is barely a two-and-a-half star work, rounded up only because of his past successes. This one is for Lindsey fans only...all others can find better material elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: A well-written mediocrity
Review: David Lindsey has established himself as a pretty good mystery writer over the years, telling dark tales that usually are good if not exceptional. His gift for description gives his stories a quality that with other writers may be thought of as slow; with Lindsey, however, this novels do not move slowly, but serenely.

In this story, sculptor Ross Marteau has just returned to his Texas home from Paris, where his most recent relationship has ended rather badly. Soon, he gets involved with a pair of sisters, one beautiful and mysterious, the other suffering from a deformity that takes away from her own beauty. It is obvious that the two women are out to manipulate Marteau, but he blindly allows himself to be drawn into their web.

Although Lindsey's descriptive abilities are as good as ever, his plot is weak and not very original. There are story elements here from a number of works, including Body Heat and the Grifters. The truly clever plot twist that I kept longing for, the one that would say that these plot cliches are about to be turned into something new and delightful, never comes. Add to that a main character who rather densely allows himself to be manipulated and rarely takes action (until the end of the story), and there is a little to be desired here.

I have always looked forward to Lindsey's books, which makes this book all that more of a disappointment. While his talent offers some redemption, this is barely a two-and-a-half star work, rounded up only because of his past successes. This one is for Lindsey fans only...all others can find better material elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Animosity from girlfriends creates appalling results
Review: Ejected from his latest tortuous relationship when she stabs him, famous reclusive artist Ross Mateau escapes into hypnotic monotony of moulding flattering sculptures of trophy wives. His creative eye is revitalised by the arrival of two beautiful, enigmatic (though decidedly weird) sisters. Intrigued, he accepts their commission to sculpt the stunning but deformed Leda.

Lindsey enchants with his expertly crafted details of Ross's well-ordered life in San Rafael and convinces with the specifics of the artistic process. The triangular dynamic between Ross, the sculptor; Leda, the troubled, hunchbacked model of his newly testing sculpture; and Celeste, gorgeous lover with her lurking problems of a grievous marriage, appears to settle into a predictable, if awkward routine.

Then, all is shattered by the brutal murder of his lover's husband and it becomes clear that Ross's life will never be the same again.

Lindsey continues to prove that he is a superior thriller writer in this departure from the routine police/murder investigation that provides the bread-and-butter plotting of most thriller writers. His imagination, characterisation and plotting yet again earn him the acclaim, if not the popularity, that he deserves.

Rating:
Summary: Truly Unique
Review: Having read and thorougly enjoyed Lindsay's Absence of Light, I eagerly bought everything else of his that I could find. My second voyage into his writing was this book. IF ONLY I had read the assessment of the first review!! This book is nothing like what Lindsay is capable of. It is boring, predictable and its characters are somewhere in between overdrawn and ridiculous. In an attempt to have a series of twists and turns, the author has the reader spinning - leaving one with a sense of nausea at times. I shall not give up on Lindsay, however. Absense of Light was so brilliant that I'm sure this was just a fluke.

Rating:
Summary: Mistake
Review: I dont believe that I actually finished this book. Book is boring, plot is nonsense, and how anybody actually enjoyed this book is beyond me.

Rating:
Summary: Truely Terrifying
Review: I have never read a David Lindsey book before this one, so I had no preconceived notions about what type of writer he is. I happened to pick it up at the bookstore and after several chapters, went home with it. I thought he did a great job at depicting the evil that can live inside humans. The story has many twists, but what is most unsettling is that everyone is lying the entire time. You never get the sense that you can trust the characters, even Ross, because he is not adept at telling himself the truth or seeing in others. The story is not scary in the traditional sense, like a Steven King novel or something of that nature; instead what makes it terrifying is the human behavior and the fact that you can imagine it happening. The entire novel is very intense and will have you gasping more than once. In addition, if you are looking for resolve in the ending, you won't find it.

Rating:
Summary: When first we practice to deceive
Review: Oh, what a tangled web we weave. Well, particularly if you are female and land in the pages of Mr. Lindsey's books? Drama meets deceit in this compelling story that amazingly (and quite gracefully) moves between Paris and the Texas hill country. Sculptor Ross Marteau is stabbed by an angry lover at the beginning of the story and little do we know that his women problems will only escalate. This was a very captivating "can't put it down" kind of book, with an excellent sense of place. Definitely a man's story, with much emphasis on the female form and diabolical scheming of the gender. And the truly terrifying part is that there really ARE people like this out there, people who understand only lies and passion and folly. Grippingly good in a seamy sort of way.

Rating:
Summary: Diabolique without the Twist
Review: This is the first Lindsay book I have read and based on the characterizations I am not apt to pick up another one except perhaps to explore the Stuart Haydon character many of the other reviewers mention with true reverance. This tale of a moody sculptor living the high life in Paris and at his retreat in the Hill Country of Texas leaves much to be desired---most of all I needed to like the characters a lot better than I did. I understood that Ross, the artist had sold out and was producing nudes that needed perhaps some degree of expertize to churn out but little imagination or even emotional output from the artist. When Leda, the beautiful/ugly enigma walks into his life chaperoned by her more than mysterious sister, Celeste, I understood immediately why Ross would want to devote everything to capturing Leda's yin/yang of beauty versus ugliness in a 3-dimensional portrayal. But after many other seemingly disengaging affairs with willful, mysterious women, I had to wonder just why he would want to stick his neck into such a jumble of psychological innuendo.

Lindsey moves the story along at a quick pace, but again he seems to skim the character's surface---the only intense semi-dimensional personage is Leda and she only appears for a portion of the book. Celeste, albeit mysterious, seems a little too sad; Ross, jaded and too detached--so much so you continue to wonder why he does the things he does for these women.

I would have liked to see the plot include Ross's rich male friend, but this unfortunately does not happen and the climactic scene occurs at the plot's halfway mark instead of at the near end when it should. The supposed killer ending simply doesn't satisfy unless we view the whole adventure as a morality tale where anyone playing with fire ends up being burnt like he/she deserves. Call me an optomist but I don't read to ultimately feel fatalistic.

The scenario involving the two women weavng a web motivated by revenge and passion is an old one used many times before---this one has all the makings of something familiar yet still interesting, especially in terms of Ross' excitement over the sculpture he is creating, but then falls flat without the needed climatic twist. Recommended as only a quick read.