DDC/MDS
| 823/.914 |
Publication
London : Hutchinson, 1984.
Original publication date
1984
Description
Fiction. Mystery. HTML: A girl experiments with the occult to keep her family together in this psychological thriller from the New York Times�bestselling author of Dark Corners. In a quiet house in the London suburb of Manningtree, fifteen-year-old Pup and his emotionally damaged older sister, Dolly, have become closer than ever since the death of the their mother. Pup's bookish obsession with witchcraft gives their disordered life a sense of purpose. Dolly isn't sure what to expect from the talisman Pup makes her, until their father brings home a vulgar new wife. Then, Dolly, resentful and suddenly empowered, makes a deadly wish�the first of many. In a depressed neighborhood on the other side of town, a paranoid hermit has been questioned in a series of brutal murders. Lately, he's taken to living in a tunnel behind a fort of mattresses, where he keeps his knives. Soon, his life and the lives of Pup and Dolly will converge. As one of them struggles toward something close to sanity, the other two will descend even further into darkness. "Only Rendell can show us how chillingly easy it is for ordinary people to slide into criminal behavior," and in The Killing Doll, the tumble is relentless (Oprah.com). "Rendell, who perfected the art of the truly suspenseful psychological thriller" is a three-time recipient of the Edgar Award, and the author of numerous bestsellers (The Boston Globe)..… (more)
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Available
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User reviews
LibraryThing member lsh63
A deeply disturbing psychological thriller, which I usually love, but this book didn't do too much for me, it was mediocre in my opinion.
Pup Yearman sold his soul to the devil when he was sixteen. His sister Dolly thinks that her brother has special powers and can perform magic. She makes dolls for
Pup Yearman sold his soul to the devil when he was sixteen. His sister Dolly thinks that her brother has special powers and can perform magic. She makes dolls for
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her brother to cast spells with. A woman is found bleeding to death, a man is pushed in front of a subway and at the end I just didn't care anymore. I wouldn't say this is the eeriest or best book that she has written. Show Less
LibraryThing member JohnGrant1
Glancing at the publication date of this, 1984, I was prepared to describe it as an early Rendell; yet according to the "Also by" list on the half-title verso she'd already by this time published a dozen Wexford novels (which surprised me less), ten of her psychological thrillers and three books of
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short stories. (I've no idea if by 1984 she'd instituted her Barbara Vine alter ego.)The main focus is on brother and sister Pup and Dolly; he as a boy sold his soul to the Devil and took up the practice of ritual White Magic, although since discovering sex he's grown out of such fancies; she, the older sibling, has had a life marred by people's negative attitudes toward her facial nevus and latterly by her steady heavy drinking, and refuses to believe her little brother isn't a powerful magus -- a conception bolstered by some not-too-implausible coincidences, primarily the sudden death of the pair's despised stepmother after a cod ritual involving the desecration of a doll of her. Dolly, having attended far too many faked Spiritualist meetings, is convinced the ghosts of her mother and now the stepmother accompany her everywhere, commenting on her every action and offering her advice whether or not it's needed.
A secondary focus of the plot concerns the seriously insane Diarmit Bawne, who lives undiagnosed nearby; already his profound delusions have led him to murder and mutilate an innocent. Much of the tension of The Killing Doll is our knowledge of the inevitability of these two plot strands being brought together . . .
Absorbing, claustrophobic, powerful: all the usual adjectives applied to Rendell's psychological thrillers apply here. It's not in the top drawer of those, but it's a well-wrought piece nonetheless.
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LibraryThing member Bookmarque
The Killing Doll is a focused tale of madness as it infects Dolly and Dairmit and how their paths will inevitably cross. I took an instant dislike to Dolly, even before she really went off the deep end. Her insane hatred of cats and how she deliberately forced her neighbor’s cat into oncoming
Ditto with Dairmit’s unraveling. For a while there, I thought Conal was a construction that he built out of whole cloth. Realizing that he was a real guy isn’t quite as creepy, but it was still a very effective way of showing Diarmit’s mind and how it was battling itself to stay sane and cope with his behavior. Even though he was trying so hard to separate it from his core identity, eventually he shed it and put all his evil deeds onto the Conal identity.
I like how Rendell doesn’t get tangled up in providing the why for Dolly’s or Diarmit’s conditions. Each is understood, but that isn’t as important as what’s happening to them now (Diarmit’s is the more sympathetic story, Dolly is her own worst enemy). Portraying each canted psyche is the key and it’s done so well. See -
“As it happened, though, when Conal came Diarmit did not see him come. He must have slipped into the room during the night. For when Diarmit awoke he was there, wearing dark red clothes and taking his knives out of the Harrod’s bag, examining them closely, to check no doubt that Diarmit had taken care of them in his absence. Conal the murderer, Conal the criminal, Conal the outcast. Jobless, friendless, hated, mad Conal.
Because he knew what would happen if he left the house, because he dared not go out yet must have exercise, he began pacing the room. Up and down, he paced the small cluttered room with a heavy dogged tread that after a while grew weary, but he paced on.
He did not speak. There was no one to speak to, for Diarmit had gone.”
Oh that's just brilliant.
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traffic and death meant I could never root for her and I’m glad she came apart at the seams. Her descent was a thing of beauty. The alcohol. The dolls. The ghosts of mom and stepmom. Their giggling. The obsession with her brother and his “magic”. The occult. Her nevus (it’s a wonder that thing didn’t talk to her too). Boy does Rendell do it well.Ditto with Dairmit’s unraveling. For a while there, I thought Conal was a construction that he built out of whole cloth. Realizing that he was a real guy isn’t quite as creepy, but it was still a very effective way of showing Diarmit’s mind and how it was battling itself to stay sane and cope with his behavior. Even though he was trying so hard to separate it from his core identity, eventually he shed it and put all his evil deeds onto the Conal identity.
I like how Rendell doesn’t get tangled up in providing the why for Dolly’s or Diarmit’s conditions. Each is understood, but that isn’t as important as what’s happening to them now (Diarmit’s is the more sympathetic story, Dolly is her own worst enemy). Portraying each canted psyche is the key and it’s done so well. See -
“As it happened, though, when Conal came Diarmit did not see him come. He must have slipped into the room during the night. For when Diarmit awoke he was there, wearing dark red clothes and taking his knives out of the Harrod’s bag, examining them closely, to check no doubt that Diarmit had taken care of them in his absence. Conal the murderer, Conal the criminal, Conal the outcast. Jobless, friendless, hated, mad Conal.
Because he knew what would happen if he left the house, because he dared not go out yet must have exercise, he began pacing the room. Up and down, he paced the small cluttered room with a heavy dogged tread that after a while grew weary, but he paced on.
He did not speak. There was no one to speak to, for Diarmit had gone.”
Oh that's just brilliant.
Show Less
LibraryThing member lucybrown
The Killing Doll is the second book that I have read by Ruth Rendell and both have followed the same thread, one or more of the characters slowly unraveling and descending into madness. Lethal madness. I can't say she is really my sort of thing, though the author has been tauted as the best mystery
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writer writing in English. I found the stories I have read to be overheated and just barely believable. I'll probably give the writer another try. Show Less
LibraryThing member lucybrown
The Killing Doll is the second book that I have read by Ruth Rendell and both have followed the same thread, one or more of the characters slowly unraveling and descending into madness. Lethal madness. I can't say she is really my sort of thing, though the author has been tauted as the best mystery
Show More
writer writing in English. I found the stories I have read to be overheated and just barely believable. I'll probably give the writer another try. Show Less
LibraryThing member lucybrown
The Killing Doll is the second book that I have read by Ruth Rendell and both have followed the same thread, one or more of the characters slowly unraveling and descending into madness. Lethal madness. I can't say she is really my sort of thing, though the author has been tauted as the best mystery
Show More
writer writing in English. I found the stories I have read to be overheated and just barely believable. I'll probably give the writer another try. Show Less
LibraryThing member rkreish
The Killing Doll by Ruth Rendell
Pantheon, 1984
Source: I bought this book.
While my local library has reopened in a limited capacity, I am still plugging away at my project to clear my bookshelves. I picked this Rendell because of the creepy cover, and because I figured a book from the 80s would have
The story centers on the Yearman family: older sister Dolly idolizes her younger brother Pup, who takes up magic (but he loves to call it geomancy). The siblings and their widower father are all grieving and wounded in their own ways: Dolly is psychologically debilitated by the port-wine birthmark on her face and her mother's death; Pup is still a teenager when his mother dies and while adrift turns to the occult for some sort of organizing principle in his life; and their father Harold runs a typewriter store by day and devours historical fiction in all of his spare time. The B story deals with a loner who lives in the Yearman's neighborhood, and he has his own host of psychological issues. He's also an orphan.
The book is mostly Dolly's story: her obsessions, her phobias, and her plans for her brother the magician. Rendell renders her agoraphobia and fears very keenly, and while I was dismayed throughout the book, I couldn't turn away. It's been five years nearly to the day that I last read Rendell (one joy of blogging is I can verify these things), and I, again, highly recommend her.
Pantheon, 1984
Source: I bought this book.
While my local library has reopened in a limited capacity, I am still plugging away at my project to clear my bookshelves. I picked this Rendell because of the creepy cover, and because I figured a book from the 80s would have
Show More
a different feel than a contemporary crime or psychological suspense novel. The Killing Doll delivers: it's sinister, it's heartbreaking, and it surprised me along the way.The story centers on the Yearman family: older sister Dolly idolizes her younger brother Pup, who takes up magic (but he loves to call it geomancy). The siblings and their widower father are all grieving and wounded in their own ways: Dolly is psychologically debilitated by the port-wine birthmark on her face and her mother's death; Pup is still a teenager when his mother dies and while adrift turns to the occult for some sort of organizing principle in his life; and their father Harold runs a typewriter store by day and devours historical fiction in all of his spare time. The B story deals with a loner who lives in the Yearman's neighborhood, and he has his own host of psychological issues. He's also an orphan.
The book is mostly Dolly's story: her obsessions, her phobias, and her plans for her brother the magician. Rendell renders her agoraphobia and fears very keenly, and while I was dismayed throughout the book, I couldn't turn away. It's been five years nearly to the day that I last read Rendell (one joy of blogging is I can verify these things), and I, again, highly recommend her.
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Subjects
Physical description
236 p.; 23 cm
ISBN
0091554802 / 9780091554804