A Dark-Adapted Eye
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A Dark-Adapted Eye
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Narrated by:
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Harriet Walter
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Written by:
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Barbara Vine
About this listen
Like most families, they had their secrets...
...and they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. No onlooker would guess that prim Vera Hillyard and her beautiful, adored younger sister, Eden, were locked in a dark and bitter combat over one of those secrets. England in the '50s was not kind to women who erred, so they had to use every means necessary to keep the truth hidden behind closed doors - even murder.
©1986 Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd (P)2014 Audible, Inc.What listeners say about A Dark-Adapted Eye
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- mavo
- 2024-12-26
The complexity of women's lives
Barbara Vine is always my favourite Ruth Rendell. Her exquisite detailed description of the lives of the women who lived in the UK during the Second World War is comprehensive, compelling and heartbreaking. The tale is masterfully told, inching toward resolution slowly, holding tension like a high wire. Harriet Walter's narration is perfect - her formidable acting skills shine through in her portrayal of the myriad of characters and I felt privileged that she would take on this project and make it shine like this. Recommended for anyone who loves Ruth Rendell or a good mystery with historical detail and social commentary.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Genevieve Paquette
- 2020-05-06
not for me
Hard 3. Definitely not my thing. Read as part of my attempt to read through a list of 50 mysteries that someone (who I am beginning to feel used a questionable rubric...) deemed essential.
I have read one "Barbara Vine" book before, The Chimney Sweeper's Boy. Was it good? No. Was it memorable? Yes. It was one of the sleaziest things I have ever read, and I've read Richard Laymon! It delighted in the taboo. <spoiler>The protagonist accidentally on purpose has sex with his brother in a bathhouse and the book ends.</spoiler> Needless to say, I expected something completely salacious and repellant.
I was wrong.
It was, honestly, kind of a snooze, and a little too genteel for me. But, she still managed to throw some taboo breaking in there. <spoiler>There's some pedophilia that is accepted as totally ok, and we are actually supposed to feel sympathetic to the grown man and antagonistic towards the boy</spoiler>
The main mystery was so... upper middle class skeletons in the family closet, full of thoroughly unlikable people. Like, they were almost all total jerks, selfish, narcissistic, cold-hearted, just gross.
The narrator is ok, but she is just that, narrator, spending the story on the periphery. It was a good plot device.
But yeah, I think that in the end, we are supposed to feel bad for one particular character, but to me it felt like a case if "you reap what you show."
If you like family melodrama, because <spoiler> the whole things revolves around who is a kid's mother, one sister or another. One never finds out for certain </spoiler> this could be a winner. If you are looking for a really good mystery, look elsewhere.
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