What drove Vera Hillyard to brutally murder her younger sister Eden? The answer turns out to be far more complex than the question. Wryly narrated by their niece, Faith Severn, this flat-out brilliant story brings to light a hidden world of love, lust, greed, and pain. Vine's characters aren't just well-developed; they are completely real and totally convincing. What distinguishes A DARK-ADAPTED EYE from Rendell/Vine's other novels is that aside from the usual intricate plotting and realistic sense of place, the conclusion is gut-wrenchingly emotional. As the inevitable tragedy approaches, the suspense escalates to a fevered pitch, and the final climax manages to be riveting and deeply moving. More than any of her other books, A DARK-ADAPTED EYE shows that the mystery genre is not at all inferior to serious fiction; on the contrary, the mystery genre at its best delivers the best that the literary world can offer.


As a mystery, only fair   June 20, 2002
 14 out of 17 found this review helpful

I guess I will be the one who appears to disagree with the majority of reviewers of this book. I will agree with the fact that the story is well written and laid out very well by Vine (Rendell). As a work of literature this is definitely a good book. I however, selected this book because it won an Edgar Award for best mystery and had those expectations. The book moves very slowly. I put it down countless times and read other books in the process. I picked it back up because of the wonderful reviews I had seen on Amazon. (I had not read anything by Ruth Rendell or Barbara Vine to compare the style of this book to her other books. According to a note in the back of the book when Rendell writes as Vine, she writes in an entirely different style.) In the end, I wasn't satisfied as a lover of mysteries with the pace or the outcome of the book.

So if you are looking for a fast paced mystery novel then this is not for you. If your expectation is that of a piece of literature that well depicts a society family in 1940s England, and the dysfunctional nature that they try to conceal and how it affects their lives both then and into the present, then this will not disappoint. Just don't expect this book to go quickly.


A marvelous mystery   September 10, 2001
 12 out of 13 found this review helpful

This is one of the most sophisticated mysteries in years, and intitated a whole series of superior psychological novels from Ruth Rendell under the nom de plume Barbara Vine. The work begins with the sensational headline-grabbing state hanging of Vera Hillyard; the rest of the work is preoccupied with why she was executed and whom she murdered. Although Vera's victim becomes apparent earlier than halfway through the book, the whys of murder are much more intriguing: indeed, the novel purposefully begins with a knotted web of familial Hillyard relations for the reader to enjoy sorting through until it all makes sense.

The tale Vine has to relate is a complex one, extraordinarily deftly told: one has only to see the well-meant expensive botch made of it on British television to see how extraordinarily subtle Vine's art is here. The sense of wartime and postwar atmosphere is marvelously evoked, and the particular attention given here to WWII makeup and glamor (a favorite preoccupation of Barbara Vine's) is an especially intriguing and enjoyable detail.


The best book of a top-notch author.   May 5, 1998
 11 out of 12 found this review helpful

If not for sexism and genre-snobbery, Ruth Rendell, alias Barbara Vine, would be recognized as one of the greatest living writers, and this book is her masterpiece. Vera Hillyard undoubtedly committed a murder and was duly hanged for it. More than thirty years later, Daniel Stewart, a writer researching a "re-examination" of the case, approaches Vera's niece, Faith. In helping Stewart, Faith is drawn back into the past. It is Faith who has the "dark-adapted eye" and can see murky things in the past (both about society and about her own family) that her modern-day grown children can't begin to comprehend. The book is replete with symbolism and secrets: secrets springing from the repressed sexual mores of the forties and fifties, touching on homosexuality, illegitimacy, adultery, and supposedly virgin brides. The richness and complexity of the narrative, the bell-ringing realness of the emotions described, and the capture in amber of mid-twentieth century attitudes, make this a book to read over and over, and to recommend to everyone you know.


Wonderful mystery!   September 10, 1999
 7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Although I had already seen the PBS mini-series version of this book and knew the outcome, it was worth reading - how many books can you say that about? Very subtle with many twists - very enjoyable to read.