The Girl Next Door: A Novel

The story starts with the murder of two people a long time ago. A hand is severed from each corpse before the bodies are destroyed. These are placed in a box and secreted under the foundations of a building. A group of elderly friends played in this area they then called "the tunnels" when they were children. The police give the discovery scant interest as it is a crime committed in the distant past - they have enough to do with the present.. These severed hands have a profound effect on the later lives of the children who played in "the tunnels" after they are discovered. I have read all Ruth Rendell's books and have found them consistently good. Nobody can bring her characters alive as realistically as as she does. The books are so plausible and deal with ordinary people one could meet anywhere, but like everyone, they have their idiosyncrasies.Rosemary, one of the children is depicted as innocent and trusting but very predictable. Now in her mature years and married to childhood friend Alan Norris, she thinks she has the perfect life. Unfortunately Alan finds his life with Rosemary to be unexciting and is annoyed with Rosemary's futile efforts to make clothes on her sewing machine. The constant whirring of this machine drives Alan to distraction. Rosemary's marriage has been a long and as she thought, a happy one. She trusts her husband implicitly but when he betrays her with another childhood friend, Daphne Jones, Rosemary cannot comprehend the changes in her life. She almost goes off her head with grief and has a mental breakdown.. After Alan's fling with the exotic Daphne Jones ends he believes Rosemary will take him back with open arms, but he is sadly mistaken. Rosemary has suffered badly but has survived and found a life for herself that she is enjoying without the restraints of her marriage. Alan is left bereft with everything gone and unable to relate to his lone stateRuth Rendell brings her characters to life as no other author can.. However, this latest book, "The Girl Next Door" isn't up to her usual standard. Even saying that, Ruth Rendell's writing is vastly superior to most books I have read lately. Her stories are always worth reading and I look forward to each new one being published. Even though she isn't writing up to par, I still enjoyed this latest offering. The Girl Next Door is about old age, something Ruth Rendell has never tackled before.

Brief summary and review, no spoilers:The story starts out during the war years in the 1940's in a small town in rural England. We are introduced to a man named "Woody" who is a very typical Ruth Rendell character - he is a complete sociopath.From the very start we find out that Woody is married to a woman named Anita who is having an affair with another man. Woody catches them together and kills them and chops off their hands and puts them in a biscuit tin. He buries the tin in a series of tunnels that are the playground for a lot of the village kids.After this quick start to the book, we then dive into the main body of the story which takes place during modern times. While doing construction, some workers find the biscuit tin with the hands and it is given to Scotland Yard. The inspector assigned to the case is not happy about getting this old, old case for a variety of reasons, not the least because the chances of finding the killer are remote and finding him alive have even worse odds. The detective isn't even sure a murder occurred.When the kids from tunnels (now in their late 70's and 80's) read about the hands being found, they contact the detective to let them know what they know, which at the start isn't much. Over the course of the story we will gradually find out what has happened to Woody and just who's hands are in that tin along with Anita's.What makes me say that this isn't your typical Rendell mystery is that the mystery isn't the draw or even the focus of the book. I am a HUGE Rendel/Vine fan and have read each and every one of her books. No one does quirky, sociopathic characters better than she does and she often has a great twist or two in the story as well.In the book, the heart of the story, so to speak, is in getting to know these old people and getting inside their heads. Ms. Rendell is obviously writing what she knows here and I felt like I understood what it's like to be that age. These are not stereotypical literary old grandmothers or grandfathers - these are fully developed flesh and blood characters who still want to be happy and have good lives. They matter. They are the focus of the story and they can have the same feelings and emotions and hopes of those of youth.I loved the way she showed them falling in love and behaving like those much younger - and their kids assuming they must have dementia - and the way she shows that at that age, death is ever on their minds and how they must deal with the sadness of losing so many contemporaries.I thought this book had a bit of a slow-start (and there were lots of names to remember,) but then it absolutely took off for me and I just loved it.Again, I am not sure I'd recommend this for the mystery element (there weren't as many great turns and twists as in my favorite of her stories), but the book has such heart and is so beautifully written and has much to show us about aging and getting old.Brava Ms. Rendell. I'm such a fan.

I may have felt differently about this book if I had not been expecting a mystery. There is none. The entire story of the hands is told in the first few chapters and a lot of names are thrown at the reader. I nearly put it down, but was encouraged to keep reading. The Girl Next Door is more like a domino effect. After a box is discovered in a basement with two severed hands (we know who killed these people and pretty much who they are), old friends meet up again, and basically... one characters has a mid-life crisis in his late 70s and another starts to think about his childhood. The character POV switches quite a bit and every character seems to be just existing. It never really took off for me, and just when I thought it would, it didn't.All in all, it was O.K. I kept wondering why the mystery didn't unfold while the lives of the affected people were evolving. Seems like it would have made the story more interesting. But if you are tired of the same mystery format, this might be the one for you. It's definitely unique! The cast of characters are all pensioners and it's interesting from a psychological viewpoint.

Quite a good read. It plumbs the depths of what people are capable of & how the secrets suffocate behind closed doors.

Not among those old enough to have accumulated some.It is very daring to begin a novel with an unlikeable protagonist. We are lead to believe that this terrible person is to be the main character, and most readers prefer to be able to identify to some extent with the protagonist.Luckily this psychopatic person leaves the scene, and keeps in the background from then on.It is a geriatric novel, no doubt about it. All the characters from the first chapters are suddenly old, and in their twilight years.As often is the case in crime fiction, the solving of a crime has more implications for a wider circle of people, and even between these old folks, feelings and emotions are stirred, and shaken.After the unraveling of the crime which took place during ww||, the lives of the now very old group of people will not be the same again.Ruth Rendell has done it again with the enthusiasm we have become used to expect from her.People may look old on the outside, but the inside may still react in an unexpected and surprising way.Bodil Marie - Keeping her Wits about Her.

Love among the Over 75’s doesn’t sound alluring but here it’s powerful and genuine and even more gripping than the entangled murder mystery. A compulsive read.

Very unusual and gripping story. A secret murder has been committed in Loughton, Essex in 1944. This story follows the consequences of that murder through 60 years, on the lives of the children who played in the tunnel or 'quanat' as they called it,where a grisly discovery was made at the time. We know about the murder in the beginning of the book, The book begins in 1944 during the war. Most of the storyline, however, concerns the lives of those children now. The characters are now in their 70's, 80's and even 90's. Ruth Rendell's characters come to life vividly and even though they are old, they are still passionate, articulate people who we do care about. The murder is unfinished business which has stayed in the minds of the characters throughout their lives. One of the children, motherless Michael Winwood is the son of the mysterious John' aka' Woody Winwood,who sends him away as a 6 year old child to be looked after by a distant relative and then disappears himself. We follow Michael and the other main characters Alan and Rosemary who met in the 'quanat' and are now married, Daphne Jones, the femme fatale who has been married 3 times, and several others whose lives did not work out as they perhaps intended. I found this a fascinating story. Highly recommended.

Brief summary and review, no spoilers:The story starts out during the war years in the 1940's in a small town in rural England. We are introduced to a man named "Woody" who is a very typical Ruth Rendell character - he is a complete sociopath.From the very start we find out that Woody is married to a woman named Anita who is having an affair with another man. Woody catches them together and kills them and chops off their hands and puts them in a biscuit tin. He buries the tin in a series of tunnels that are the playground for a lot of the village kids.After this quick start to the book, we then dive into the main body of the story which takes place during modern times. While doing construction, some workers find the biscuit tin with the hands and it is given to Scotland Yard. The inspector assigned to the case is not happy about getting this old, old case for a variety of reasons, not the least because the chances of finding the killer are remote and finding him alive have even worse odds. The detective isn't even sure a murder occurred.When the kids from tunnels (now in their late 70's and 80's) read about the hands being found, they contact the detective to let them know what they know, which at the start isn't much. Over the course of the story we will gradually find out what has happened to Woody and just who's hands are in that tin along with Anita's.What makes me say that this isn't your typical Rendell mystery is that the mystery isn't the draw or even the focus of the book. I am a HUGE Rendel/Vine fan and have read each and every one of her books. No one does quirky, sociopathic characters better than she does and she often has a great twist or two in the story as well.In the book, the heart of the story, so to speak, is in getting to know these old people and getting inside their heads. Ms. Rendell is obviously writing what she knows here and I felt like I understood what it's like to be that age. These are not stereotypical literary old grandmothers or grandfathers - these are fully developed flesh and blood characters who still want to be happy and have good lives. They matter. They are the focus of the story and they can have the same feelings and emotions and hopes of those of youth.I loved the way she showed them falling in love and behaving like those much younger - and their kids assuming they must have dementia - and the way she shows that at that age, death is ever on their minds and how they must deal with the sadness of losing so many contemporaries.I thought this book had a bit of a slow-start (and there were lots of names to remember,) but then it absolutely took off for me and I just loved it.Brava Ms. Rendell. I'm such a fan.

I suppose I was expecting a whodunit. Never really got into it, not cared about the characters. Other people seem to have enjoyed the book, but I didn't.