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Still, the bleakness of the story is a small price for the chance to read this intriguing tale of three lives that are at once spiraling out of control and towards each other. Most interesting is the story of Benet. When Benet's toddler son dies of illness, Benet's mentally ill mother brings home another boy of the same age. Benet is aghast but doesn't want her mother (or herself) to be arrested for kidnapping. Then she discovers the child has been abused. At the same time, the boyfriend of the biological mother is falsely accused of the boy's murder and we watch his world unravel. A third plot is added latter which is more tangentially related.
Rendell spins this tale in a way that captured even me, a reluctant reader. In one sense it was a depressing read but at the same time I was captivated and eager to read another chapter. "The Tree of Hands" is hardly a conventional murder mystery but it is an excellant example of pyschological suspense.
Her child, James, is pivotal to her existence. She encounters Rendellesque situations i.e. being emotionally torn between her mother and child, having the one ripped away and the other intensifying the pain yet ironically leading her to her salvation, having to choose between her newly-found soulmate and the child, being torn between what is legally and morally right as opposed to what is emotionally right.
Perhaps the ending could have been better but then book endings are often not as good as the rest of the book deserves. Perhaps it is merely the fact that a good book has ended that makes one feel a little "empty" at the end.
Read it!
