One of Vine’s best. The tension is just perfect and the characters are well drawn. I especially felt for Ursula trapped in marriage to a man who only wanted her for breeding purposes. Nice. It’s astonishing that neither daughter could see past the constant ass-kissing from dad to see this. Seriously, what was wrong with them? Neither had especially redeeming characteristics at all; especially Hope who is really a waste of air. I seriously don’t know how Fabian stands her.

The way Gerald’s past is revealed is by stages, the way any investigation goes. A clue leads to a guess which proves correct and it goes on. Sarah actually hires someone to do this for her and while backward and somewhat clueless, he’s a pretty smart guy (so glad he burst Hope’s smug, self-satisfied little bubble by guessing the whys of The Game). Strange that he and Sarah appear to have hooked up. I guess in the void of daddy’s adoration she needed a substitute; although I can’t see Jason falling under the delusion that sunshine indeed does shine out of her ass.

The real strength of this novel is how Vine ties things together. Candless’s novels each contained a grain of truth (sometimes whole baskets full) and each connected with the chain of his early life. I especially like the explanation of why he got so enraged over the sea mist and why he insisted on shutters. There isn’t one “ah-ha” moment, but many and in the end the solution is very satisfying. I am left wondering what Gerald would have done had he lived after he gave the manuscript to Romney. Did he plan to disappear again? Suicide? Ask for it back? Maybe he just knew he wouldn’t live long after his shock at the hotel. ( )

This is the first Barbara Vine novel I've read, although I've read a couple of Ruth Rendell's more traditional crime fiction novels. I gather the use of one or the other name is an indication of the genre of the book, and I hesitated long to classify The Chimney Sweeper's Boy as a crime novel. Rather, it is a novel focusing on an enigma, a mystery. There is certain intriguing resemblance to the whodunit crime fiction in that the puzzle is created by somebody's death. Those attempting to solve it have to begin with identifying the missing pieces before they can start putting them together and tracing the lost pattern, in this case, who really was Gerald Candless, the famous writer and why did he assume another identity. A well-written novel keeping the reader gripped until the very end. ( )