King Solomon's Carpet

It surprises me that so many react negatively to this book. Barbara Vine is the name Ruth Rendell wrote under when getting away from her more well known detective novels. Detective and genre fiction has always had a hard time getting respect as genuine literature. This book is advertised as a thrille......more

Ruth Rendell (aka Barbara Vine) was a great writer and as such her novels possess an inherent readability. I for one am generally happy to keep soldiering on, even when the going gets stodgy. King Solomon’s Carpet, however, tested this principle to the limit. I reckon I spent a good three-quarters of......more

I have read Ruth Rendell's novels, and those under her pen name Barbara Vine. Like The Bridesmaid, I found this novel quite bleak and gothic, and yet, also like The Bridesmaid, I couldn't stop reading it. The author takes us into the lives of broken families, disturbed and frightened runaways, and m......more

I loved the fact that some history of the London Underground is interspersed with the plot in this novel - I don't know why, because I don't live in London, but I've always found stories about the tube's background fascinating. The novel has several characters all somehow connected with an old schoo......more