The Copper Peacock and Other Stories

Nine stories of psychological suspense plunge into the hidden depths of ordinary events when the death of a cat changes someone's life, and a scholar receives a mysterious gift from the woman he is obsessed with

The marvelous title story, like most in this collection of nine tales by British doyenne of suspense, Edgar-winning Rendell, delights with its fine-tuned psychological effects. Egotist Bernard borrows a friend's flat to ensure quiet while he writes a book. Flattered by the awed, pretty maid, Judy, who tidies up and serves him exquisite lunches but arrives for work each day increasingly bruised and battered, Bernard cringes with mortification when Judy gives him an ugly but costly peacock-shaped bookmark. The denouement is a master stroke. A mousy woman in "A Pair of Yellow Lilies" takes a young lover, enticed by his angelic beauty and vividly embroidered jacket, and a subtle criminal trade-off occurs. Another tit-for-tat tale, one that cat fanciers will warm to, "Long Live the Queen" features a snarly elegant feline who finds her regal niche after another cat is killed. Murder is the theme in "Mother's Help," in which a handsome man enlists the unwitting aid of his children in getting rid of tiresome wives. In the ghoulish "The Fish Sitter," an aquarium claims human prey. Chief Inspector Wexford, from Rendell's Kingsmarkham series, appears in "An Unwanted Woman," his equanimity threatened by a spooky teenage runaway. Rendell's signature is the malevolence of the day-to-day, shot through with currents of wit and whimsy.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Nine new short stories from the prolific, impressive Rendell- -but an underpar batch this time, with no top-notch entries and quite a few clinkers. Many of the pieces here begin seductively, with an arresting Rendell character-sketch or psychological situation, only to peter out disappointingly. ``Paperwork'' has a fine gothic setup--girl raised by cold grandparents in a great manse--that goes nowhere. The title story, about a writer's snobbish attitude toward a cleaning-woman, shifts awkwardly from subtle insight to unconvincing melodrama. Two items--the Maugham-manqu‚ ``Dying Happy,'' the Roald Dahl-ish ``The Fish-Sitter''--are barely more than anecdotes. Only two stories offer solid, if obvious, suspense: the creepy ``Mother's Help,'' about a straying husband's homicidal use of his precocious children; and ``An Unwanted Woman,'' in which Wexford and Burden (Rendell's regular sleuths) investigate the suicide of a lonely widow who had recently befriended a teenage runaway. Lesser work from a major talent; readable but unpersuasive. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Rendell seems to have had an off day when she compiled this uneven collection. Most of these stories--some very short--deal with the role of capricious, even repetitive irony in the psychology of the deftly described characters. One of the best stories here, "A Pair of Yellow Lilies," portrays a woman's bittersweet delight in the termination of an affair. Another, "Long Live the Queen," produces a rather antic irony in the death of a cat. While the collection's high points may appeal to a few, the whole remains unimpressive.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.