Product Description

`An intense, compelling tale'

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21242 in Books
• Published on: 2009-08-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
As well as Ruth Rendell’s customary expertise with the narrative demands of crime fiction, Portobello provides a colourful and eccentric portrait of one of the most distinctive areas of the capital, the Portobello district of West London. To both Londoners and visitors, the areas is lively and exciting, but there is a level of criminality here which Rendell handles as adroitly as ever. The book is something of departure for the author, less plot-led than customarily.

Eugene Wrenn, who lives modestly despite his wealth, has inherited an art gallery from his father. But Eugene moves to a more upmarket location in Kensington Church Street. He is 50, but looks older than his age, and is plagued by an addictive personality (currently, he finds himself unable to give up an addiction to low-calorie sweets). Despite this, he has a reasonably happy relationship with a GP, Ella, who finds herself able to put up with these quirks -- at least, those she knows about. Eugene discovers an envelope containing money, which he picks up in the street. But instead of doing the logical thing and taking it to the police, he sticks a note on a lamppost near his house, asking whoever lost it to claim the money (but withholding information only known to the real owner) The first to apply is a small-time criminal, Lance (recently thrown out of his house for domestic violence), who is thinking of casing the house of his benefactor -- even if he is initially unable to get the money. But the genuine owner of the money is the disturbed Joel, who lives in a self-induced darkness and shares his life with a phantom companion.

Utilising this disparate and eccentric cast of characters, Rendell forges a discursive but compelling novel that (as always with her work) keeps us reading inexorably. Some may find the characterisation broader than they are used to with Rendell, but this is still seductive fare. --Barry Forshaw

Review
`A thriller steeped in psychological intrigue ... Rendell's prose style is as succinct and accessible as ever' --Daily Mirror

Review
`Impossible to put down ... Portobello is as brilliant as anything she has ever written'

Customer Reviews

The Queen of Psychological Suspense returns with an excellent standalone thriller...
In the mid-70s, Ruth Rendell published a short psychological novel entitled `A Demon in my View'. This slim masterpiece was sad, seedy, and concerned the creepy characters and goings on in a boarding house. She revisited similar themes in the recent `Thirteen Steps Down' and now once again in this novel where three properties (including a boarding house) provide the focal point for much of the action.

All of the main characters live on or within touching distance of Portobello in London - hence the title - and the book explores how their lives intersect with one another.

Eugene Wren, art gallery proprietor, lives in a well-to-do area which he comes to share with his fiancée Ella Cotswold, a medical doctor. One day he comes across a sum of money and advertises his find (without stating the exact sum) on a local telegraph pole in an attempt to find its owner. Lance, a young unemployed and unemployable burglar, decides to chance his arm at conning the cash out of its finder.

Unfortunately for Lance, by the time he calls round, Eugene knows the identity of the real owner - Joel Roseman - a young man who's currently recovering in hospital from a heart complaint. The socially isolated Joel subsequently engages Ella as his private doctor, and she visits him a few times at his property, a handsome dwelling but kept in a shabby, darkened state by its incumbent. This is all paid for by the obscenely rich father who's ostracized him for years because of a family incident. As the book progresses Joel's mental health deteriorates alarmingly.

Lance's uncle Gilbert Gibson (Uncle Gib) - an ex-jailbird who's now deeply religious - owns a run down property half a mile away from Eugene. He rents out rooms to his burglar nephew Lance (burglary is the family trade), and later to a barely-seen immigrant, who nevertheless becomes an integral part of the plot.

Although Eugene and Ella seem like the perfect upper-middle class couple, Eugene has his own 'dark' little secret...

The book title is ironic in that Portobello is famous for its bright, breezy, bustling market, and Rendell deliberately contrasts this with the empty, sad or grey lives of most of her major characters.

It features several outstanding passages that describe what it's like to be mentally ill, or ostracized, or in the grip of a strange obsession. Dame Ruth does sad, creepy individuals with obscure motivations better than almost any living writer. The novel also contains deliberately understated scenes of violence, that hit home without being visceral.

Of course there's so much more to the book than I've indicated: it's a study of the impact of chance and coincidence on the lives of a set of very disparate individuals. I don't feel I'm spoiling it when I point out that for once, everything ends well (though not in ways you'd expect) and is an illustration of the redemptive power of love. Even crime queens have their sentimental moments!

Rendell has hit a rich vein of form recently with the previously mentioned `Thirteen Steps Down' and `The Water's Lovely' being outstanding reads. Unfortunately she suffered a minor blip with last year's disappointing Wexford novel, 'Not in the Flesh' which was readable but a little clichéd. Happily `Portobello' is once again, top-notch entertainment. As Barbara Vine she published `The Birthday Present' a few scant months ago. She was 78 years old this year, and no one should be able to write as well, or prolifically as this at that age!

This is a compelling novel and a great study of psychologically damaged and/or disadvantaged people. Told in her usual elegant, spare prose this is very definitely recommended and just fails to get the maximum 5 stars. I make it a 9/10, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Has Rendell stalled?
I agree with Amber...I was also disappointed. When I reached the end I had one of those 'Is that it?' moments so went back and re-read a few sections convinced I must have missed something. As ever, it's beautifully written and the characters are perfectly formed but not at all what I've come to expect from Ruth Rendell. It's neither a murder mystery nor a psychological thriller and the strapline 'Our darkest fears can hide in the brightest places' seemed to bear no relation to the plot. There's absolutely nothing sinister in an addiction to sugar free sweets! Joel was probably the most perplexing character but even he was more manipulative than menacing.

I used to live in Ladbroke Grove and aside from recognising some of the roads and landmarks didn't feel that helped me engage with the story in any way. The characters were brilliantly crafted and believable so in that sense the hard work was done for you but this was really an exercise in people watching. The ending was all too neat and convenient; it was almost as though Ruth's writing time was up so she suddenly had to tie up all the loose ends in a rush.

Perfectly readable as it's so well written but this is no classic Rendell mystery. Also, there's an annoying continuity error in the last 10 pages re: Ella's birthday, which made me think that even the proofreader must have given up before the end! (Some of the key events take place on 14/15 August which is Ella's 40th birthday; later this is referred to as Sept 15 (p. 268) but by p. 277 it's back to August). That bugged me!

A bit....meh....
I agree with so many of you here, Bluebell especially has summed up the way I felt and I also agree strongly with J Benner and Claire. The continuity errors with the dates were glaring and irritating, the addiction to the fictional "Chocorange" beggared belief as a reason for Eugene to end a relationship and Joel's rapid descent into madness a trifle hard to swallow.

I can't articulate how much I used to adore the work of Ruth Rendell and the Barbara Vine novels but her last few works have not been up to scratch.