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A Fatal Inversion

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A Fatal Inversion

By: Barbara Vine
Narrated by: William Gaminara
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Summary

In the long, hot summer of 1976 Adam, Rufus, Shiva, Vivien and Zosie are camping at Wyvis Hall. They don’t ask why they are there or how they are to live; they simply scavenge, steal and sell the family heirlooms.

Ten years later, the bodies of a woman and child are discovered in the Hall’s animal cemetery. But which woman? And whose child?

©1987 Kingsmarkham Enterprises (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Family Life Genre Fiction Mystery Private Investigators Suspense Thriller & Suspense Traditional Detectives Fiction Detective
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I enjoyed the story, very clever and different but there were not enough pauses in the correct places. Not sure if it was narrator or editor who messed it up. Flicking backwards and forwards in time needs a breath in between at very least.

Edited badly?

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Great story fantastically written & read. Horrible people being horrible.

Editing is unfortunate. Not even the slightest pause when jumping between timelines. If you're confused, rewind and get your bearings again!

Very hard to follow

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With a really satisfying twist at the end. It’s a very dark story with no sympathetic characters but if you are in the right frame of mind for that I can highly recommend this audiobook.

Absolutely gripping

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Great tale, evoking the long hot summer of 1976 and the vibe of indolent young people living together in an idyllic Suffolk country house. The unravelling of the mystery in the pets’ cemetery was well done but the switching of timelines rather confusing - poorly handled by the narrator.
Surprise ending that was quite satisfying.

Good story but poor narration

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I read this book when it was published in the 1980s. It is hard to remember today how groundbreaking it was as so many writers subsequently learned from Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine.
It is hard too to remember how unusual and claustrophobic a baking hot summer once was. I was fascinated to revisit her early insight into the mentality of entitled young men. Their casual attitude to the women and to someone of another racial background, not to mention the way they barely acknowledged villagers who sometimes pass by the house in a working capacity, is totally resonant of privileged young men of the period of the hot mid 70s summer, and even in the scenes of a decade later it is barely beginning to dawn on them as their consciences start to unravel. It shocks today when light has been shone on this so much, but she was at least decade ahead of many writers in this book.
Oh - and even though I soon started to remember the substance of the ending, I was still gripped to see how it all all turned out.

Fascinating to revisit this book.

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