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Minty is not the only character in this book. There is also Jock, or Jeff, or Jerry Leach, depending on whom you ask, a rather charming young man who befriends women, only to disappear with their money. He has befriended Minty, only to desert her by pretending to get himself killed in a train wreck. Before that, he has befriended, and in one case married, a whole string of other women, several of whom find their way into this book, along with their own sets of problems. But the story belongs to Minty. It begins and ends with her, and with the horrible but inevitable acts she commits while battling her hallucinations. She knows Jeff is dead, but his ghost won't leave her alone and she's desperate. She knows she must get rid of him ... and she does.
Adam and Eve and Pinch Me did not blow me away. In fact, there were times when it did not seem like Rendell's writing. Many of her characters came across more like caricatures than real people, especially Matthew and his wife. I did not find myself growing especially attached to any of the bizarre parade marching through these pages. I did, however, read the book all the way through, something that doesn't happen so much now that I've gotten more fussy, and, even if I did find disbelief hard to suspend at times, I was never bored. Rendell is certainly a master at her craft, and while Adam and Eve and Pinch Me is not her best work, it is still an excellent read.
In this novel, Rendell creates some extremely dysfunctional characters. Yet, no matter how strange or unlikable the characters are at first glance, the author manages to make the reader both understand and sympathize with them. Most dysfunctional of all is Minty Knox, a pathetic and lonely young woman who has a horrible case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. She is compelled by her illness to wash herself, her clothing and her home many times daily; her fear of dirt is pathological. Worse yet, Minty eventually starts to hallucinate, seeing and hearing ghosts of people whom she has known in the past. There is also a strange couple, Michelle and Matthew Jarvey, who suffer from extreme eating disorders and an ambitious Member of Parliament named Jims Melcombe-Smith, whose is willing to go to desperate lengths to keep his homosexuality a secret.
The lives of these people and others intersect when two bizarre murders are committed in London in close succession. The police cannot decide who had the means or the motive to commit these strange crimes, but the reader is in on the secret all along. Therefore, "Adam and Eve" is not so much a whodunit as it is an intricate, suspenseful and fascinating psychological study of the different ways that people behave under extreme duress. It would be fair to state that Rendell's view of human nature is generally a negative one, since she so often depicts selfish, petty and disturbed people in her novels. However, Rendell tempers her pessimism with delicious humor and deep compassion. Occasionally, as in the case of Michelle and Matthew Jarvey, Rendell creates characters who treat one other with genuine consideration and devotion. The whole spectrum of human nature is on display in Rendell's novels.
I highly recommend "Adam and Eve and Pinch Me." It is a wonderful book that will mesmerize, horrify and entertain you all at once.
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