Grasshopper

Barbara Vine

Editions

Review

This is a very unusual Barbara Vine book – but I won’t spoil it for you by telling you why.  Sorry to tantalise you – but let me make up for being so coy by saying that this is an enjoyable and absorbing novel about a young woman whose past casts a shadow over her life.  We are safely in the author’s usual territory: all of the characters are either unhappy or weird or from dysfunctional families or just plain unpleasant.  As in the Ruth Rendell book, The Keys To The Street pbk £5.99, the action takes place in London, only here it is mostly on the rooftops of Maida Vale.  There is a murder, an abduction, and electricity is a main theme – indeed, almost a character.  Ingenious. - review by Dan Fenton

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