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    The Girl Next Door: A Novel
    The Girl Next Door: A Novel
    The Girl Next Door: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Girl Next Door: A Novel

    Written by Ruth Rendell

    Narrated by Ric Jerrom

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    INCLUDES AN EXCERPT OF RENDELL’S FINAL NOVEL, DARK CORNERS

    From crime legend Ruth Rendell, a psychologically intriguing novel about an old murder that sends shockwaves across a group of astonishingly carnal and appetiteful elderly friends: “Refined, probing, and intelligent…never less than a pleasure” (USA TODAY).

    In the waning months of the second World War, a group of children discover a tunnel in their neighborhood outside London. For that summer of 1944, the subterranean space becomes their “secret garden,” where the friends play games, tell their fortunes, and perform for each other.

    Six decades later, construction workers make a grisly discovery beneath a house on the same land: a tin box containing two skeletal hands, one male and one female. As the hands make national news, the friends come together once again, to recall their long ago days for a detective. Then the police investigation sputters, and the threads holding their friendship together begin to unravel. Is the truth buried amid the tangled relationships of these aging men and women and their memories? Will it emerge before it’s too late?

    Stephen King says, “no one surpasses Ruth Rendell when it comes to stories of obsession, instability, and malignant coincidence.” In The Girl Next Door—“yet another gem” (The Washington Post)—Rendell brilliantly shows that the choices people make, and the emotions behind them, remain as potent in late life as they were in youth. “Rendell’s wit, always mordant, has never been sharper than when she skewers patronizing assumptions about the elderly” (Chicago Tribune).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateOct 7, 2014
    ISBN9781442375192
    Author

    Ruth Rendell

    Ruth Rendell (1930–2015) won three Edgar Awards, the highest accolade from Mystery Writers of America, as well as four Gold Daggers and a Diamond Dagger for outstanding contribution to the genre from England’s prestigious Crime Writ­ers’ Association. Her remarkable career spanned a half century, with more than sixty books published. A member of the House of Lords, she was one of the great literary figures of our time.

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    Reviews for The Girl Next Door

    4/5

    30 ratings14 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Beautifully done narration. Characters and situations they ring true. Thought-provoking meditation on aging and the aged throughout.
    • 5/5
      Great Ruth Rendell...great novel.. I really don't find another expression
    • 3/5
      In the summer of 1944 there is not much for a group of young people to do in the English countryside until one day they discover a tunnel that becomes their secret meeting place. It’s a place to wile away some time; play games on make shift tables by the light of candle, tell stories, have makeshift fortune telling sessions and wonder where life will take them. They are content until one day, for no apparent reason, the father of one of their group appears at the entrance to their tunnel and forbids them to play there ever again.

      Fast forward 60 years to where the countryside is now a London suburb and excavations are going on for a new home to be built when what should be unearthed but a tin biscuit box containing intertwined skeletal hands. The police are called but it is obvious from the onset that these hands are from a bygone era. Would anyone really care how or why they were buried in this place where the tunnel used to be? As the investigation gets underway we meet the, now senior, group that used to play in those tunnels. The police call all the pertinent characters together in a reunion of sorts to try to piece together the now 60-year old circumstances. Each person has their own story about what has happened since 1944 and each has a theory or suspicion about whom the hands may belong to.

      The interesting thing about this book is that Ms. Rendell lets her reader know in the first few pages that a murder has been committed; by whom and who one of the victims is while the second unfortunate person remains a mystery. You would think that would ruin the mystery and why would you want to keep on reading? Despite being privy to the circumstances of the crime the reader is never sure until the end of the story who the second victim might be and even whether the murder and the discovery of the hands are indeed connected.

      Sounds like a pretty good read doesn’t it? And in many ways it was. I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery. However after the “reunion” the book took a slight turn onto Wisteria Lane and became a bit soap-opera-esque. I was about to give up on the book because I couldn’t deal with any more of the senior’s soapy dramas (or their unlikable children and grandchildren) when Ms. Rendell pulled my attention abruptly back by reintroducing the murderer, now an almost 100-year old man. It was good timing since the story of his life and that of his son Alan were the most interesting in the book. It made me want to keep reading to the end.

      Oh, do we find out the mystery of the two hands. Absolutely!
    • 4/5
      I’ve read virtually all of Ruth Rendell’s books, including those written under the Barbara Vine pseudonym, and I’ve enjoyed them. This one is no exception though it is more a meditation on aging than a mystery.A tin box containing two skeletal hands is discovered. In the course of the criminal investigation, a group of people is reunited, a group that as children, seventy years earlier, played together in secret tunnels where the box is found. The reader knows the identity of the murderer from the opening chapter; the novel shows how everyone else learns the identity of the victims and the perpetrator, but more significantly, focuses on how a crime can disrupt lives far into the future.There is a large cast of characters but they are clearly differentiated, and when they reappear after an absence, Rendell gives subtle reminders of who they are. We see how love and loss affect many of them. Several experience the death of a loved one; one contends with the infidelity of a spouse after a 55-year marriage; one reunites with a long-lost lover; and one must face a parent who abandoned him.The majority of characters are at least septuagenarians. What I liked is that they are not stereotypical old people. They make mistakes, grow in self-knowledge, and make changes in their lives, sometimes even dramatic changes. Though they may sometimes feel that they are out of step with modernity, they all function well.Though mystery lovers may be disappointed that this is not a classic Rendell whodunnit or a Vine whydunnit, it has much to offer. Written in the crisp Rendell style, it examines death from a different perspective - that of the aged rather than that of a detective.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this one! Not a thriller or suspenseful as I was expecting, but rather sort of a mystery or, even more so, simply a novel about human foibles and folly. A good listen, with very good narration. Check it out!! ?
    • 4/5
      A very good book full of interesting characters well drawn
    • 3/5
      This is the first book by Ruth Rendell and I don't know that it was the best choice. I've heard rave reviews on her writing but this book mostly left me puzzled. The writing is well done, the characters are great and I didn't mind spending time with most of them but the story didn't feel like a mystery, so I'm not sure what it was supposed to be.There are a group of people, all over 70 years old who were friends when they were in the 12-16 age group. They used to spend time in some tunnels they called qanats. Fast forward 60+ years and the discovery of a pair of hands in a tin box in the ground where they played gets most of them back in touch with each other and all of their lives are changing, quickly.The only mystery is who the 2nd set of hands belongs too, the one pair is from the mother of one of the children.I finished the book because I liked the characters and was mildly curious about the 2nd set of hands.Someone will have to convince me that I should read more of Rendell's books, this one didn't inspire me to read any.
    • 4/5
      This is certainly not the same as Ruth Rendell's other novels, but that doesn't mean that it's any less enjoyable. Ms. Rendell is a master at her craft and has always been one of my favourite authors whether she's writing as herself or her Barbara Vine penname. This book breaks all the barriers and preconceived notions about aging and what motivates people in their very senior years. A group of old school friends are brought together six decades after they were young and were exploring the neighbourhood where they all lived. An old tin box is found in the tunnels that they used to play in under an old building, and when it is opened it is found to contain two skeletal hands-one the hand of a male and the other a female's hand. This discovery serves to bring these old friends together again when they are all in their seventies, and it serves to dredge up old emotions, and causes each of them to make some decisions that forever change their lives. Yes, there is a crime in this book, but the book is so much more than a crime novel. Ms. Rendell has created some unforgettable characters in this novel, and she succeeds in making us all aware that age makes no difference to the effects that decisions that we make in the heat of passion or in the full flush of anger are just as significant and momentous as any decisions that we make in our younger years.
    • 3/5
      A group of childhood friends, now in their 70s, are brought back together by the discovery of a box containing two hands hidden in the place they used to play together.I used to really love Ruth Rendell's books, especially those written under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. I thought she had a great talent for delving into her characters' psyches and plumbing their dark depths. On hearing of her death, I thought I'd read one of her more recent books. While this novel is very psychological, I wouldn't call it particularly dark, nor was it very suspenseful. It was mostly about getting older, which is a good subject for fiction but not what I was really expecting or wanting from this book. I found the plot itself boring and somewhat repetitive. There were too many characters for me to feel that I really got to know any of them very well, and the way one of them reacted to a confession about something his girlfriend did in childhood quite frankly repulsed me. I guess I prefer Rendell's earlier books.Read in 2015 in memoriam.
    • 3/5
      The Girl Next Door. Ruth Rendell. 2014. My homage to the author who died in May. I cannot remember if I downloaded this before or after her death. Rendell is mentioned a long with Josephine Tey and P. D. James as a successor to Agatha Christie. I don’t remember reading any of her Wexford books, but I may have. James has been my favorite woman author of British mysteries. A group of children played in underground tunnels in a subdivision on the outskirts of London during WWII of until the father of one of them orders them away and threatens them if they return. Flash forward 50 years when the children are now adults in their seventies: a box is discovered that contains the clasped hands of a man and a woman. The group is drawn together when the police began to question them. Rendell is a great writer; the plot moves and the characters are wonderfully developed. The Kindle Trash writers could certainly learn from her.
    • 3/5
      Recently read two other Rendell books and, after reading this one, have decided I am not a fan of her works. We are not compatible.
    • 4/5
      Second attempt at reviewing ! If you've seen bad reviews of this on Amazon ignore them as this is Ruth Rendell at her best- more than half way to a Barbara Vine with grisly events in the past affecting people in the present. It's the most moving Rendell/Vines I've read -very affecting on bereavement, with scene painting and imaginative power showing no diminution from the early days. The first chapter is creepy as hell, the rest of the book maybe not as creepy as other Rendellls, but overall more likely to stay in the mind as itshorrors are more subtle. My only complaint is Ruth's frequent assertions of linguistic and social references of old versus young for example I got quite hot under the collar when a 75 year old character professed never to have heard of ITMA and when it was noted that no one says chemists any more, but pharmacists instead! But maybe these were put in to annoy slightly obsessive middle aged people like me. A fine, more than up to scratch Ruth Rendell. ,
    • 3/5
      This is Ruth Rendell's final novel, and it's better than her previous few. Which is not to elevate it to the level of her best work, but it was, at least, not bad. The Girl Next Door begins with the discovery of a tin box containing two hands, found by construction workers underneath an old house. They date back to the final years of the Second World War, making this mystery less than a priority for the police. But the discovery brings back together a group of people who were children living in the area in 1944, and who regularly played in a series of tunnels behind their estate. Now in their seventies, they reconnect and the reunion unsettles their lives, as well as draws old memories, both bad and good, to the surface. Rendell is on much surer footing writing about contemporaries than she has been writing about younger people. One of the things that made her earlier books such a joy to read was how she made even the most twisted of characters both nuanced and sympathetic, and here she manages to do that again, although one character is only redeemed at the last minute. If you've enjoyed Rendell's books already, you'll probably like this one well enough, but if you haven't yet read anything by her, please begin with something from a few decades ago instead.
    • 5/5
      Listening to the audio was wonderful but for a little while I had a hard time keeping the different characters straight but that worked itself out. And what a fascinating tangle of relationships amid an incredible mystery!