Joss begins her psychological vivisection where other suspense novelists leave off. The results are extraordinary.
A calamitous accident is followed by an even more unsettling event in this sixth helping of psychological suspense from Joss (Half Broken Things, 2005, etc.).
Minutes after discovering that her husband, a Wiltshire anesthesiologist, is cheating on her, the nameless narrator, professing that the end of her marriage really doesn’t matter, inadvertently runs over a bicyclist and kills her. Leaving her victim, retired teacher Ruth Mitchell, in the road and driving off is cruel enough to her but even crueler to Ruth’s husband Arthur. Disconnected and disoriented, Arthur begins writing letters to his dead wife at the suggestion of a friend, and the correspondence takes on a disturbing life of its own when he begins to seek some sign of her everywhere, including in their house and garden, and in The Cold and the Beauty and the Dark, the unfinished novel she’d been writing. As Ruth’s novel-within-a-novel unfolds, the story of Evelyn Ashworth’s betrayal first by her husband and then by his uncle between 1932 and 1956, it gradually becomes clear both that her characters are more solid and substantial, albeit less nuanced, than Joss’s own, and that the two sets of characters have some definite connection. Arthur, withdrawing from the well-intentioned neighbors determined to comfort him over his most violent objections, searches more and more urgently for that connection. Meantime, Ruth’s accidental killer, drawn by motives deeper and more obscure than mere remorse, takes to watching Arthur’s house and insinuating herself into it, taking the place of the woman whose life she ended. Joss’s exploration of her loners’ doomed attempts to reach outside themselves will remind readers of Ruth Rendell and Minette Walters, but her pathology is even more elliptical.
Joss begins her psychological vivisection where other suspense novelists leave off. The results are extraordinary.Pub Date: March 4, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-385-34118-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Manipulative but moving, for readers who don’t mind having their strings pulled.
Those with the patience to accompany the protagonist on this meandering journey will receive an emotional payoff at the end.
The debut novel by an award-winning British radio playwright (and actor) offers an allegory that requires many leaps of faith, while straddling the line between the charming and cloying (as well as the comic and melodramatic). The title character has recently retired from his office job at a brewery, lives with a wife who hasn’t loved him for decades—since their intelligent, perhaps disturbed son sparked her estrangement from her husband—and appears destined to live his life in everyday limbo until the grave. Then, one day, he receives a letter from a female co-worker with whom he had once been close but hasn’t been in contact for 20 years. She is dying from cancer and has written to let him know, to say goodbye. Without planning or preparation, he embarks on the title’s “unlikely pilgrimage,” somehow believing that if he can walk the hundreds of miles over the many months it will take him, she will remain alive to welcome him. On his journey, he meets a bunch of characters, becomes something of a celebrity and learns a little bit more about the meaning of life. These lessons are articulated in homilies such as “you could be ordinary and attempt something extraordinary,” and “Maybe it’s what the world needs. A little less sense, and a little more faith.” Maybe, but if such sentiments seem akin to those from one of Mitch Albom’s bestselling parables, the novel’s evocation of everyday British reticence, heartbreak and wonder occasionally suggest the depths of the great Graham Swift. The final chapters of the novel resolve the mysteries that have been underlying the rest—how the son divided his parents, why the co-worker had disappeared from Harold’s life—and there’s a powerful resolution in which all’s well that ends well.
Manipulative but moving, for readers who don’t mind having their strings pulled.Pub Date: July 24, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9329-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although some of the Quinns' problems are resolved, many are not, happily promising a third installment next year.
In a sequel to last year's holiday novel Winter Street, Hilderbrand improves on the first by delving deeper into the emotional lives of the Quinn clan.
A year has elapsed and the events that closed the first novel have developed: thanks to the generous $1 million loan from his first wife, world-renowned newscaster Margaret Quinn, Kelley can keep his Winter Street Inn open, although it's lonelier now that his wife, Mitzi, has left him for George, their one-time holiday Santa. Kelley and Mitzi's son, Bart, is still MIA in Afghanistan, and Mitzi is falling apart; unhappy with George, she spends most days drunk. The lives of Kelley and Margaret's three children are also in crisis. Patrick is now in prison for insider trading, while his wife, Jennifer, tries to hold their family together with the help of illicit prescription pills. Ava seems to have found “the one” with vice principal Scott, if only she could stop thinking about wild Nathaniel. And middle son Kevin has made good with girlfriend Isabelle and their infant, Genevieve. Hopefully he can avoid his first wife, the troubled Norah, who has returned to the island. This year's Winter Stroll, a Nantucket Christmas tradition, coincides with Genevieve's baptism, bringing together all the Quinns and their issues. Also on island for the festivities is Margaret's beau, Drake, a pediatric neurosurgeon and about as perfect as can be, if only Margaret and he could bow out of their schedules and enjoy each other's company. In the ensuing few days, everyone has life-altering decisions to make—even Ava, now that Nathaniel has returned to the island to propose. Only Nantucket itself is left unscathed by the juicy drama. Described in all its magic (after all these years, one hopes Hilderbrand is on the tourist board's payroll), it seems impossible for such turmoil to exist on the charmed island.
Although some of the Quinns' problems are resolved, many are not, happily promising a third installment next year.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-26113-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
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