Finished Th 10/25/18
This is one of my very old hardbacks that I pulled because Janny lent me a copy of 'A SEVERED HEAD' by Iris Murdoch. This was an English social satire from 1961, I didn't read it, but it made me think of Rendell. And, several days later I stumbled upon 'THE CROCODILE BIRD'- very glad that I did.
The author's page at wikipedia-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Rendell
I didn't realize she had written so many books, and that she also wrote under the name, 'Barbara Vine'. 'THE CROCODILE BIRD' is a stand-alone novel.
Plot summary from wikipedia-
"When her mother, Eve, tells Liza that she must leave their remote home, the gatehouse of a country mansion, Liza is terrified. Although sixteen years of age, she has never been on a bus or a train, has never played with a child of her own age. She has almost no knowledge of a world described by her mother as evil and destructive. Their strange, enclosed life together is over because Eve has killed a man. And he is not the first. With 1,000£ in cash, Liza is cast adrift. However, she is not alone. There is one particular secret she has kept from her mother - her love affair with a young man who worked in the gardens of the big house. With him, gradually Liza learns about the world, about herself, and must come to terms with the possibility that the murderous violence of her mother may be present in her".
The novel is set near Coventry, England in the late 80's and early 1990's. Coventry is near Manchester, England in the very central part of the country.
Eve is not exactly a 'female version of Blue Beard'. She grew up with Jonathan Tobias and his family owned Shrove House and he led her to believe that someday it would belong to her. In fact, years earlier a will was made in which Eve's mother and family would get the house. She kills three men and the first man tried to rape her, although this doesn't excuse her behavior. She set two doberman pincers on the man. The next murder is Bruno. This man was an artist and he probably wanted her to leave Liza and move away with him. Eve would never leave Liza or Shrove House, so this man had to go. And, finally she kills Jonathan when she finally realizes that she'll never get Shrove House and he never had any intention of marrying her,
Police are notified for the original murder- Trevor Hughes (she knew him as 'Hugh'). Matt the groundskeeper, the man who looked after the dogs probably alerted the police. The dogs were digging in the area where Eve had buried the body on the morning after the murder, and although they didn't find anything, but it seemed suspicious. Although many years had passed, Matt always remembered this incident. He never liked Eve because she despised him.
The novel begins with the police raid on Shrove House. Eve is preparing Liza to leave the gatehouse. She wants Eve to travel to London and live with Eve's college friend, Heather. Liza had only met this woman one time. And, to say that this would be ridiculously overwhelming for someone who had lived such a sheltered life would be seriously understating the obvious.
However, sixteen year old Liza had been having a secret affair with Sean, the gardener. Instead of going to London to live with Heather, Liza leaves with Sean in his camper van.
Sean is basically a good guy, but you can see that this could possibly grow into an abusive relationship. He wanted to be the man of the house and Liza (although she really hadn't grown into it) was infinitely smarter than Sean.
Basically, the novel is a big flashback in which Liza tells Sean the truly odd story of her life with Eve at the gatekeepers cottage at Shrove House.
The strange ending is that Liza realizes that she doesn't have the murderous impulses that her mother found so appealing. After Sean and Liza have been together for a couple of months, Sean gets a promotion and an opportunity to go to Scotland and train to become a manager in the chain that he is employed.
Liza is all set to sedate Sean with sleeping pills, and somehow murder him. She gets them from the house that she works as a house cleaner for Mrs. Spurdell. This old woman is a skinflint and hates to pay Liza anything at all, but here is where Liza meets her savior. Mrs. Spurdell's daughter, Jane Spurdell who lives on 76 Shrove Road ( Liza was born in 1976 and, of course, lived at Shrove House).
Instead of killing Sean and striking out on her own, she goes to Jane's house and asks Jane to help her get into school. She knows that she can live in the camper and if the authorities evict her, they are forced to provide her with housing. Also, Jane helps her arrange to contact Eve who is in jail for the murders of her lovers (or lover?)
It's really a trun-around to learn that Liza doesn't resort to killing. She's such an odd person, that this would seem to be logical to her, but I guess the point of the novel is that Eve didn't do such a bad job raising the girl, and maybe the isolated existence really did 'save' Liza from the ugliness of life.
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