The Chimney Sweepers Boy, Barbara Vine
The Chimney Sweepers Boy, Barbara Vine
List: $29.99 | Sale: $21.00
Club: $14.99

The Chimney Sweeper's Boy

Author: Barbara Vine

Narrator: Jenny Sterlin

Unabridged: 15 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 11/04/2011

Synopsis

Writing as Barbara Vine, award-winning mystery author Ruth Rendell outshines even her own brilliant reputation for psychological intrigue. The Chimney Sweeper's Boy is mesmerizing as it probes the dark recesses of the psyche. Vine lures you, clue by clue, into a labyrinth of sexuality, love, and shame. When literary celebrity Gerald Candless suddenly dies, the beautiful facade he has carefully created begins to crumble. Behind the vision of the happy family on the English seashore lie Candless' inexplicable cruelty toward his wife, his manic devotion to his daughters, and the mysterious sources of his fiction. To assuage her grief, his loving daughter Sarah begins a memoir project. But it soon becomes an obsessive search for identity. As Sarah digs deeper and deeper into her father's secret past, the startling logic of his puzzling behavior is revealed. Narrator Sterlin, with her soft British accent and perfect pacing, coaxes out all the novel's haunting nuances.

About Barbara Vine

Ruth Rendell, writing here as Barbara Vine, has won three Edgar Awards, the highest accolade from Mystery Writers of America, as well as four Gold Daggers and a Diamond Dagger for outstanding contribution to the genre from England’s prestigious Crime Writers’ Association. Her remarkable career has spanned more than forty years, with more than sixty books published. A member of the House of Lords, she lives in London.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Pam on June 13, 2023

This Barbara Vine novel has a couple of themes under an umbrella of general family dysfunction. It works pretty well but gets a little lost towards the end, where one is supposed to be getting the “why.” A noted author with a distinctly cold attitude towards his wife and an overly loving attitude tow......more

Goodreads review by Ann on May 13, 2009

I'm a huge Ruth Rendell fan, and I love her Barbara Vine persona novels the best. This one is classic Barbara Vine. You know the "mystery" right away. It's the way the mystery is solved and how the story unfolds that's intriguing. You can see it coming about 100 pages from the end, but the way she ho......more

Goodreads review by Daniel on March 26, 2022

A long plodding family saga rather then a crime and thriller (I thought) A clever plot that basically reminds us that we never really, truly know our parents! The book though sadly is filled with highly unlikeable characters and this for me made it a really unengaging read.......more

Goodreads review by Sandra on November 04, 2009

This was a pretty good book. At times I felt it dragged on just a little bit. I found myself feeling irritated by the two very selfish daughters who treat their mother like she doesn't exist, and I'm bothered that by the end of the book, they STILL don't realize what their mother went through. I woul......more

Goodreads review by Mardi on September 14, 2022

Barbara Vine is the pseudonym for Ruth Rendell. I had never read any of Rendell’s work and this book hasn’t encouraged me to read more. It’s an average story, a bit predictable, not strong characters and possibly not my choice of genre. aka Gerald Candless is a writer, has 2 daughters Sarah & Hope,......more

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