Synopsis
Despondent over his alcoholic wife's violent mood swings, Richard Garrett becomes drawn into an unlikely friendship with his female neighbor, driving his wife into a jealous rage. By the author of Dangerous to Know.
Reviews
Fatherless boys-some of whom yield to bad company, others to good influence-give British writer Yorke's latest a strong emotional dimension. Self-reliant Mark lives with his unmarried mother; angry, thieving Steve with his widowed stepmother. Together they while away afternoons with aged invalid Tom Morton at his home, The Willows. Up the road at Merrifields lives Richard Gardner, a generous man of great patience, with his abusive, manic-depressive wife, Verity, and her sons, vulnerable Terry and tough, rude Justin. As village incidents of vandalism, arson and burglary escalate, each of the boys falls under suspicion. When Tom dies, homely retired spinster Marigold Darwin buys his house. Here Yorke's trademark suspense kicks in: Alan, the man Tom raised as a son, has completed a prison sentence for his wife's murder and finds he is disinherited. Determined to dig up his murder weapon under the shed at The Willows so he can start a new life in crime, Alan nurses his rage, and it's only a matter of time before he claims a new victim. Yorke works a subtle psychological study of bad behavior, yet leaves the reader free to root for the triumphs of those who choose to act decently. Mystery Guild featured alternate.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The boys who hang around The Willows, the house of old Tom Morton--Steve Burton, 14, and his friend Mark Conway, 10--don't give any thought to their casual deceptions or thefts. Neither does Mark's friend Terry Gardner or his brother Justin at neighboring Merrifields. But each of the boys is acting out another chapter in the sorry tale of their absent or inadequate parent-figures. The Gardner boys resent their new stepfather Richard, whom they think responsible for the mood swings of their neurotic mother, Verity, a self-styled artist. Mark, left on his own by his working mother and his caretaker, Steve's unwitting stepmother, is struggling to find adults he can trust. And Steve, though he doesn't realize it, is already preparing to follow in the footsteps of Tom's son Alan, just released from years in prison after shooting his wife. When retiree Marigold Darwin returns to her hometown bent on purchasing Merrifields, the home she grew up in, her well-meaning interference in the boys' lives sparks another of the matchless bourgeois tragedies in which Yorke briskly drains her characters of their last petty secret. Connoisseurs might argue that the story's intricacy, its echo of sorrow and misdeed from generation to generation, makes it less swift and brutal than Almost the Truth (1995). But readers with a taste for Yorke's grim counterpoint won't complain. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Once again, Yorke offers an engaging combination of psychological intensity and murderous intent in an English village setting. The secrets of two neighboring houses cause problems for their inhabitants, especially when a killer comes to reclaim a hidden lethal weapon. For all collections.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Intertwined throughout this dark mystery are many disturbing, provocative themes: death, emotional abuse, greed, and inescapable evil among them. Richard Gardner is inordinately unhappy, what with the violent mood swings of his alcoholic artist wife and a depressingly predictable affair with his secretary. Mark Conway and his friend Steve frequently visit a lonely old man named Tom--Mark to play chess and watch TV, Steve to secretly steal pocket money and trinkets. Tom dies without knowing that his son, Alan, a convicted killer, has hidden a gun in Tom's garden shed. Marigold Darwin, a love-starved spinster, moves into Tom's house after he dies, little guessing that her lonely life will soon become tragically entwined with those of Alan, Mark, and Richard. In a byzantine but gripping plot that moves inexorably toward the final explosive climax, Yorke uses her considerable skill to keep the reader thoroughly mesmerized from the first dark inklings and oppressive hints of trouble to the emotionally draining finale. A fine effort from a consistently top-rank thriller writer. Emily Melton
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