Robbie's Wife - Softcover

Hill, Russell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0843957697 ISBN 13: 9780843957693

Publisher: Hard Case Crime, 2007

Synopsis

To overcome writer's block, as well as his failed career and marriage, Jack Stone spends six months in the remote English countryside, where he succumbs to forbidden temptation with the wife of the man who is putting him up. Original.

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Reviews

Poet, novelist and Fulbright fellow Hill (Lucy Boomer) brings seductive intensity to this story of quiet desperation and the corrupting effects of obsession. Jack Stone, a 60-year-old Los Angeles screenwriter down on his luck and seeking inspiration, journeys to England for what he hopes will be a creative reawakening. Instead, all he finds is an endless supply of rain, pubs and bad food. Things get interesting when he stumbles upon Sheepheaven Farm, where Robbie Barlow keeps a bed and breakfast with his wife, Maggie, a tall woman with long auburn hair who moves like the dancer she used to be. Restless and magnetic, Maggie exudes sexually charged charm toward Jack, some 20 years her senior, even as she tends to cranky Robbie and their school-age son. As his stay wears on, Jack grows increasingly fixated and, when authorities threaten to slaughter the Sheepheaven herd in the face of an epidemic, he finds the inspiration not just to begin writing again but to make a move for Maggie. Those seeking a more action-packed Hard Case (such as Max Allan Collins's The Last Quarry) may be disappointed with Hill's deliberate pace, but he holds his own in the pulp genre, lending graceful writing and three-dimensional characters to some risky dalliances and gratifying last-act plot twists. (Mar.)
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The publisher has made itself a going concern by showing a shrewd eye for reprinted pulp fiction and originals that are often as good as the reprints. Robbie's Wife, a neat update on The Postman Always Rings Twice, falls into the latter category. Jack Stone, a middle-aged L.A. screenwriter whose career is in need of a fresh start, pulls up stakes and heads to rural England, where he plans to hole up until he's written something that makes "a piss-pot full of money." But inspiration proves elusive--that is, until he stops at a bed-and-breakfast run by enigmatic sheep-farmer Robbie Barlow and his ethereal, unhappy wife, Maggie. Hill (Lucy Boomer, 1992) does a nice job of developing Stone's dangerous obsession, and his ear for local dialogue demonstrates his wide range as a writer. Setting the story against the mad-cow epizootic is a deft stroke, too, adding oppressive atmosphere and timely detail. This might be a bit brooding for some crime fans, and the ending could use more punch, but all in all, it's well worth an evening. Keir Graff
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Edition details

• Publisher: Hard Case Crime
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0843957697
• ISBN 13: 9780843957693
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256