Friday, July 15, 2016

Summer Reading: The Girl Next Door

I was expecting a typical murder-mystery when I first picked up The Girl Next Door by Ruth Rendell. Instead, I got a psychological drama about a group of people trying to recapture their youth. The novel begins with the cold blooded murder of a young woman and her lover by her jealous husband.  The murderer discovers their affair when he sees them holding hands so he ruthlessly severs their hands, places them in a biscuit tin, and hides the tin in an underground tunnel where his son and his friends play during World War II. Sixty years later, the biscuit tin is discovered, and in a half-hearted attempt to solve the crime, the police gather the people who played in the tunnels as children to question them. I thought it was odd that the murderer is revealed in the first chapter but the novel is less about the murder than about the effect the murder has on those involved. In fact, the murder is only relevant in that it brings a group of people back together after a lifetime apart. Memories are stirred. Relationships are rekindled. Truths are uncovered. When the murder is solved, it is almost anticlimactic compared with the upheaval is has caused in the lives of the characters. There is an almost bewildering number of characters (including a bevy of brothers whom I could never keep straight) but several emerge from the field.  My favorite character is Rosemary, whose husband leaves her when he is reunited with the proverbial girl next door. She is completely undone by his betrayal but eventually creates an exciting life for herself and refuses to take him back when the affair runs its course. Even though this is a very unconventional murder-mystery, I enjoyed the character development and I particularly liked the fact that the characters, who are in their 60s and 70s, have complicated and interesting lives. Give it a read.

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