Blood Lines : Long and Short Stories

Rating:
Summary: Always A Pleasure
Review: The highlight of this collection is certainly Rendell's deeply unsettling novella "The Strawberry Tree," which reads as something like a cross between Graham Greene and Peter Straub. Set against an evocative picture of Majorca in the period immediately before its current, and rather dismal incarnation as a kind of European Spring Break spot, a British family suffers a tragedy that will remain unresolved for decades. The surprising, and honestly creepy denoument should satisfy any reader, not just Rendell enthusiasts.

There are some valleys here - in particular, a narrative reversal involving "Great Expectations" which reads like a (bad) writing class exercise - but the master rarely disappoints.

Rating:
Summary: A collection of 11 stories
Review: The two longest stories in this collection are the first story, "Blood Lines," an Inspector Wexford tale of 40 pages, and the last story, "The Strawberry Tree," a somewhat strange tale which is 85 pages long. In between are 9 short stories, some of which are only 6 pages. As usual with collections, some stories are better than others. All the stories involve murder, attempted murder, or accidental death, with the exception of "Clothes," which is about a compulsive shopper. As in other English mysteries, guns do not come into play. Murders tend to be by poison or bludgeon. The author has an inventive mind when it comes to eliminating people (I would be afraid to get on her wrong side).

While some stories are very good, I had trouble getting interested in the long novelette, "The Strawberry Tree," which is written in a narrative form with only a little dialogue. The narrative starts on the island of Majorca with no real indication of why the narrator is there, then skips back 40 years to give an account of past events on Majorca, her life in between, and finally her arrival on Majorca where the story started. A mystery is introduced along the way, and a solution is finally presented. This story, like the others, was written in the 1990's, but the Spanish apparently didn't use DNA analysis.

Rating:
Summary: Ok collection, until the final story
Review: This is an ok collection of short stories, right up until the final novella, "The Strawberry Tree". Until then, most of the stories are enjoyable, all are well written, but some of them don't have much impact. "Clothes" is a bit puzzling, to name just one. However, there are some excellent ones. "In All Honesty", "Lizzie's Lover" and the wonderful "Unnacceptable Levels" which is very short, but the best short story in the collection apart from the final one.

The characters are all well drawn with accurate psychology, and many have rather disturbing and strange traits. The first story, a Wexford, which serves as the title for the collection, is well written and clever, but not quite as entertaining as some other Wexford short stories.

However, now we come to the final story. "The Strawberry Tree" is a short novella of about 90 pages, but it is the best story in the collection, and possibly the best novella i have ever read. It says many things about the human condition, as well as being incredibly touching, well evoked, interesting, clever, very well written, etc. It in itself is worth the price of the entire book. Set in part in Spain, she describes the foreign landscape beautifully, as she does the relationships between the four main children in the story. It is a beautiful story, full of psychological perception. It's intriguing, compelling, emotional, sometimes sad, and has a subtle twist to the tale that it is hard to pre-empt.

First class, but this book by the world's most talented writer. Of this generation or any previous.