A Dark-Adapted Eye (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780452270640)

"Dazzling...writing at her formidable best, Barbara Vine taps the poetry as well as the pain of her characters' clamorous declarations of their need for love." --New York Times Book Review

"When the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world launched a second byline, she actually stepped up her writing a level." --TIME

Faith Severn has grown up with the dark cloud of murder looming over her family. Her aunt Vera Hillyard, a rigidly respectable woman, was convicted and hanged for the crime, but the reason for her desperate deed died with her. Thirty years later, a probing journalist pushes Faith to look back to the day when her aunt took knife in hand and walked into a child's nursery. Through the eyes of a woman trying to understand an unspeakable, inexplicable family tragedy, Barbara Vine leads us through a shadow land of illicit lust, intimate sins, and unspoken passions--to a shattering and illuminating climax, as inevitable as it is unexpected. In this enthralling masterpiece, a great crime writer has achieved both a flawlessly crafted novel of psychological suspense and a deeply probing work of literary art.

Author: Ruth Rendell
ISBN-10: 0452270642
ISBN-13: 9780452270640
Publisher: Plume Books
Language: English
Published: 10/01/1993
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 6.70h x 4.10w x 0.80d
Award: Edgar Allan Poe Awards - Winner