THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 5, 1995 TAG: 9503020434
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY PEGGY DEANS EARLE
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
NO NIGHT IS TOO LONG
BARBARA VINE
Harmony Books. 315 pp. $23.
YOUNG TIM CORNISH has gotten away with murder.
Or has he? His conscience has been plaguing him nonstop for the past two years since he implemented the terrible plan to kill Ivo, his former lover. He's now come to expect the recurrent nightmares and fleeting glimpses of Ivo's ghostly image in every dark corner and at the end of every shadowy street.
Then there are the letters. The anonymous postings from America have been arriving at Tim's English coastal home with chilling regularity. They include stories of shipwrecks, strandings at sea or castaways, suggesting the sender knows that Tim killed Ivo and the unspeakable way that he did it.
Who's sending the letters? And what actually happened that summer in Alaska?
For mystery lovers who haven't had the pleasure of reading the books of Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell, No Night Is Too Long could be the one that makes you a fan. Rendell is the author of numerous psychological mysteries as well as a series of detective procedurals starring the crusty Inspector Wexford. Her pseudonym Barbara Vine first appeared in 1986 with the award-winning A Dark-Adapted Eye, recently dramatized on PBS.
With the new offering, the British novelist nods to an American literary ancestor, that great student of the soul's murky recesses, Edgar Allan Poe. Guilt and discovery appear as frequent themes in the works of both authors. And while Vine's setting is contemporary, she writes with a sensibility that is almost Edwardian in its doom-laden, measured pacing. Also in Poe-etic fashion, the sea appears as an evil presence, portrayed as threatening in ``its extent, its mystery, and its potentiality for death.''
In protagonist Tim Cornish, Vine/Rendell delivers another trademark complex individual. Through a series of flashbacks, she reveals that Tim, after several unsatisfactory affairs with women, fell obsessively in love with Ivo, a paleontologist he met while at university. When Ivo's initial indifference toward him turns to affection, Tim turns cold. This about-face seems to have as much to do with Tim's lack of compassion as it does with his sexual ambivalence. He struggles constantly with the unhappiness and shame he feels about his homosexuality.
But he has few scruples about sponging off Ivo and becomes heavily dependent on the older man's generosity - so much so that he begrudgingly accompanies Ivo on a trip to Alaska, where each summer Ivo works as a lecturer/guide on chartered cruises. On one of these jaunts, Ivo discovers fossil footprints of a little-known dinosaur; on a return trip, he meets his fate.
Left behind in Juneau while Ivo is on a cruise, Tim encounters Isabel Winwood. The mysteriously appealing woman becomes the consuming love of his life and the motive for murder. His relief at imagining a heterosexual existence with her is overruled by his need to erase Ivo, and his homosexuality, from the picture.
The plot's twists and turns keep you enthralled, eager to discover the identity of the sadistic letter writer and the manner in which the characters' fates intertwine. As the suspense builds to a crescendo, there are plenty of surprises, despite the author's insistence on repetitive and sometimes awkward hints of things to come.
The denouement will not disappoint even devoted Vine or Rendell fans. She proves once again to be one of the most perceptive, intelligent and inventive mystery writers around. MEMO: Peggy Deans Earle is a staff librarian. ILLUSTRATION: Jacket photo by GARY ISAACS
Jacket design by JOHN FONTANA
by CNB