Items related to Criminals
Synopsis
Five distinctly different lives are unexpectedly caught up in a frightening net of affection and fear, maternal and romantic love. The novel shows how families pull together, form themselves anew, and fly apart at the seams.
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Review
Criminals is a tweaked gothic. Instead of a dark castle, there is an average Scottish farmhouse, Mill of Fortune. There is nothing supernatural, and the love story is all in one character's mind, nearly losing him his livelihood. Ewan is less a knight-at-arms than a London businessman, and his sister is the madwoman. Mollie, however, is not in the attic, but very much up and about after her novelist-lover has left her. Ewan knows he must check on her and heads for Scotland. During a bus layover, he hears a small whimper and is amazed to find a baby in a bathroom stall. Hearing his bus about to leave, he grabs the bundle and ends up taking it with him.
Unfortunately, Mollie's reaction is not one he had hoped for: instead of calling the police, she lays siege, and their criminal career begins. Margot Livesey is clearly interested in exploring one question: How much do you really know about your family? For six chapters, the narration goes back and forth between brother and sister, but the seventh is a surprise--devoted to the man who left the baby on the filthy floor. Kenneth's thought processes are sinister and idiotic, giving him a great deal of comic energy. Having followed Ewan to Mill of Fortune, he is determined to bilk him out of as much money as possible. "Ideas, he thought, I am an ideas man." As Kenneth does his brutal best and Ewan is caught up in insider-trading complications, Mollie--still hanging onto the child--grows increasingly paranoid: "She heard something. Had Ewan spoken? Had the table? She examined each in turn. The sleek wood had grown oddly smug and duplicitous ..." Livesey is an expert practitioner of the fiction of threat, the novel of isolation and misery in which the family is a nest of sorrows.
From the Inside Flap
etry and domestic acuity, the author of Homework shows how families pull together, form themselves anew, and occasionally fly apart at the seams. Ranging from Scotland to America to Italy--and to a novel-within-a-novel--Criminals brilliantly captures the stories of complicated, sympathetic people who try to do right but turn somehow wrong. LG Alternate.
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- PublisherSeeker & Warbug
- Publication date1996
- ISBN 10 0436203863
- ISBN 13 9780436203862
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages276
- Rating
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Criminals
Seller: AwesomeBooks, Wallingford, United Kingdom
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Hardcover. Condition: USED_VERYGOOD. Criminals This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 7719-9780436203862
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Criminals
Published by
Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, 1996
ISBN 10: 0436203863
ISBN 13: 9780436203862
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Criminals
Seller: Bahamut Media, Reading, United Kingdom
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Hardcover. Condition: USED_VERYGOOD. This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 6545-9780436203862
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Criminals
Published by
Seeker & Warburg, London England, 1996
ISBN 10: 0436203863
ISBN 13: 9780436203862
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Seller: The London Bookworm, East Sussex, United Kingdom
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Cloth. Condition: USED_VERYGOOD. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. A decent, harried young banker, already on the verge of distraction, hurries north to Scotland and his mysteriously troubled sister. . Brilliantly structured and as tense as a thriller, this book shows how the best intentions can somehow turn wrong - and how families pull together, form themselves anew, and, occasionally, tear apart at the seams.(We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions etc.). Seller Inventory # 004698
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Criminals
Published by
Seeker & Warbug, London, 1996
ISBN 10: 0436203863
ISBN 13: 9780436203862
Used
Hardcover
First Edition
Signed
Seller: Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. ABAA, Gloucester City, NJ, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: USED_FINE. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. First edition. Pages lightly age-toned, still fine in fine dustwapper. Inscribed by the author to Time editor Andrea Delbanco. Novel by a Scotswoman living in Massachusetts. Seller Inventory # 419161
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