- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Scribner Book Company (September 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1439148511
- ISBN-13: 978-1439148518
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.7 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 458 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #790,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
“The characters jump off the page. The page-to-page surprises are so clever that the reader is left agape at each twist and turn. The pieces fit together brilliantly.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“An expert dissection of the hazards of human connections and the search for happiness.”—USA Today
“A novel that glides along Portobello Road like the lime in a gin and tonic. It's intoxicating.”—Newsday
“An expert dissection of the hazards of human connections and the search for happiness.”—USA Today
“A novel that glides along Portobello Road like the lime in a gin and tonic. It's intoxicating.”—Newsday
Book Description
Ruth Rendell is widely considered to be crime fiction’s reigning queen, with a remarkable career spanning more than forty years. Now, in Portobello, she delivers a captivating and intricate tale that weaves together the troubled lives of several people in the gentrified neighborhood of London’s Notting Hill.Walking to the shops one day, fifty-year-old Eugene Wren discovers an envelope on the street bulging with cash. A man plagued by a shameful addiction—and his own good intentions—Wren hatches a plan to find the money’s rightful owner. Instead of going to the police, or taking the cash for himself, he prints a notice and posts it around Portobello Road. This ill-conceived act creates a chain of events that links Wren to other Londoners—people afflicted with their own obsessions and despairs. As these volatile characters come into Wren’s life—and the life of his trusting fiancée—the consequences will change them all.
Portobello is a wonderfully complex tour de force featuring a dazzling depiction of one of London’s most intriguing neighborhoods—and the dangers beneath its newly posh veneer.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
Did not like this at all!,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Portobello (Mass Market Paperback)
Could not finish this book, and decided TV version such as the 1990s TVO series are better suited to Ruth's stories.
4.0 out of 5 stars
More About Six Degrees of Separation than Mystery or Suspense,
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 112,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (#1 HALL OF FAME)
This review is from: Portobello (Hardcover)
"Your wickedness affects a man such as you,And your righteousness a son of man." -- Job 35:8 (NKJV) Portobello is an eloquently written novel built around wanting to demonstrate how much we affect one another's lives through simple decisions and small contacts. While we tend to see ourselves as firmly in control of our lives and our fate, it isn't necessarily so. Part of Ms. Rendell's subtext is to suggest that those who are better off materially may, in fact, be more pitiful than their poorer counterparts who make the best of whatever hand has been dealt them. Because of the heavy slant towards portraying how "neighbors" affect one another, the details of the story seem almost beside the point at times. That approach doesn't make for the most compelling story, but rather gives the reader room to re-examine his or her own life. I must admit that I found the physical descriptions in the book to be stunningly well written. The character development seemed shallow and not-quite credible in comparison. As a result, the story didn't quite convince me to suspend my disbelief. If you enjoy stories that make you identify with one or more of the characters, you probably won't like this book as much as I did. If you are a Ruth Rendell fan, you may be a bit disappointed in comparison with her earlier works.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but not entirely what I expected.,
By
This review is from: Portobello (Hardcover)
In 'Portobello', Rendell creates an elegant tale of interwoven lives. Readers are shown the profound impact that strangers can, without realization, have on one another's lives.The setting of Portobello Road and Notting Hill is vividly rendered, almost to the point that it is another character. The suspense is extremely subdued. I repeatedly found myself expecting it to peak higher than it did. Having not read Rendell's work before, perhaps this is a feature of her writing for which I was not entirely prepared.
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