Items25The creator’s order
  1. 1The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) 8.2/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1955Tom Ripley’s envy becomes a practical project when he is sent to Italy to bring a wealthy young man home. Highsmith keeps you close to the small adjustments by which wanting a different life becomes feeling entitled to take one. The suspense comes from his decisions and the ease with which he…0
  2. 2A Judgement in Stone (1977)A Judgement in Stone (1977) 4.7/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1977Rendell tells you the crime at the outset, then makes you consider how shame, class assumptions and failures of attention brought people to it. Housekeeper Eunice Parchman works desperately to conceal her inability to read. Her fear of exposure meets her employers’ certainty that they understand…0
  3. 3A Fatal Inversion (1987)A Fatal Inversion (1987) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1987A summer household at Wyvis Hall leaves consequences that its former members cannot keep safely in the past. Barbara Vine, Ruth Rendell’s pen name, moves between the group’s apparently suspended responsibilities and the later lives built on what happened there. Read for the different bargains…0
  4. 4The Little Stranger (2009)The Little Stranger (2009) 7.3/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2009Dr Faraday visits a declining country house after the Second World War and becomes increasingly involved with its owners. His professional composure sits uneasily beside his longing for what Hundreds Hall represents. Waters gives class resentment and emotional investment time to accumulate inside a…0
  5. 5The Collector (1963)The Collector (1963) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1963Frederick Clegg kidnaps art student Miranda after a windfall gives him the means to arrange the life he wants. His account of care and patience is set against her experience of captivity, making the mismatch between self-description and coercion impossible to ignore. Fowles gives Miranda a voice of…0
  6. 6Notes on a Scandal (2003)Notes on a Scandal (2003) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2003Barbara Covett appoints herself defender and interpreter of a fellow teacher whose sexual exploitation of a pupil has become public. What makes Heller’s novel valuable here is how loneliness and possessiveness borrow the language of friendship. Barbara’s sharp humour can draw you towards her…0
  7. 7The Secret History (1992)The Secret History (1992) 8.1/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1992Richard Papen wants entry to a small classics circle whose style and intellectual confidence make ordinary rules seem beneath them. Tartt makes the desire to belong part of the machinery of harm: shared taste becomes a reason to excuse conduct and protect the group. The novel announces a death…0
  8. 8Rebecca (1938)Rebecca (1938) 8.3/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 1938The second Mrs de Winter enters Manderley already measuring herself against the dead woman whose place she has taken. Domestic details, servants’ expectations and her husband’s silences give that comparison enormous power. Du Maurier makes the wish to be loved affect what the narrator is prepared…0
  9. 9The blank wall (1947)The blank wall (1947)Published 1 Jan 1947Lucia Holley tries to keep a wartime household intact after finding a body at its boathouse. Each protective decision narrows her options, while blackmail and the everyday work of caring for a family continue together. Holding’s suspense is especially good at showing how a person can slide from…0
  10. 10Nothing Man (2020)Nothing Man (2020) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished 1 Jan 2020A survivor’s true-crime memoir is being read by the man responsible for the crimes it describes. That is the opening arrangement, not a late revelation. Howard uses it to place Eve Black’s effort to reclaim her story beside Jim Doyle’s anger at losing control of his own. The book-within-a-book…0