As the world and its mother know by now, Barbara Vine is Ruth Rendell, and I presume vice-versa. Whereas Rendell writes novels set more or less in the present, her alter ego sets them in the past. The framework of this one is of the fourth Lord Nanther writing a biography of his great-grandfather, who lived in good Queen Victoria's time. Michael Painter checks out the crime file.
The Blood Doctor. By Barbara Vine.Viking, £16.99 sterling
The elder Nanther was an expert on haemophilia, which afflicted the royal family, so he was appointed court physician. A meticulous keeper of records, he has left journals, diaries and the like, but it is a letter from his daughter to her brother, in which she is more than a little censorious of her father, that excites and rather perturbs his biographer. Other anomalies surface as he digs deeper, throwing up the possibility that Blood Doctor Nanther was not the paragon he was made out to be.
For example, he kept a mistress called Jimmy Ashworth and, although apparently loved by a wealthy young lady, decided instead to marry the daughter of an impecunious solicitor. And then there was the mysterious death of his youngest son, George, at the age of 11. What about that, then?
Vine has obviously done her research into haemophilia, the age of Victoria and other matters, and she does not spare the reader the results. She also happens to sit in the House of Lords as a Labour peer, and we thus also get the reform of said house at interminable length.
I persevered with the book to the end, but I have to say that I like my mystery reading to have more of a mystery, and my thrillers to be a little more thrilling. But at least I've found a way, other than counting sheep, to put myself to sleep.
The Stone Monkey. By Jeffery Deaver. Hodder & Stoughton. £14.99 sterling
Again, I'm afraid, I have to give the thumbs-down. This book is the greatest mish-mash of clichés, done-to-death set pieces, risible dialogue, cardboard characters and unbelievable coincidences I have come across in many a long day. It exhibits all the worst excesses of the modern thriller, without any of its good points.
The protagonist here is Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic ex-NYPD officer, who was portrayed on the silver screen by none other than Denzel Washington in the film of this author's The Bone Collector. Aided by his beautiful partner, Amelia Sachs, he is on the trail of a notorious smuggler and killer of humans, the Chinese equivalent of Hannibal Lecter, here called The Ghost. From his high-tech apartment, and scooting around in his Storm Arrow wheelchair, Rhyme tracks The Ghost into New York City's Chinatown, littering anti-climaxes like rain and having his progress chronicled in some of the most pretentious prose since Barbara Cartland popped her clogs.
And yet it must be what readers want, for Deaver sells in thousands - did someone say millions? - and seems to be forever on the bestseller lists.
Oyster. By John Biguenet. Orion, £12.99 sterling
Now here is a much superior piece of work and, at £12.99 sterling, much better value than the first two pricey tomes. Set in the lush, watery landscape of Louisiana, it tells the story of the blood feud between the Petitjean and Bruneau families, who have farmed oysters in the Plaquemines parish for hundreds of years. For all that time, they have been bitter rivals, their emotions soured by the grievances they have nursed down through the centuries.
But now, in the 1950s, red rot has set into the oyster beds, threatening to ruin both families' livelihoods. The only solution is for the tribes to band together and, with this in mind, a marriage is proposed between middle-aged Horse Bruneau and the young and headstrong Therese Petitjean. A moonlight tryst on the bayou is arranged, but it ends in tragedy when Horse's bloated body surfaces a few days later.
This event sets in motion a brutal confrontation that leaves the two families devastated, and can only end in a cataclysm of violence and bloodshed. Biguenet uses a prose style redolent with the sense of mystery emanating from the land and from the murky bayous that litter it. The sense of place is remarkable in this outstanding first novel, and the people who inhabit it are evoked in all their primitive splendour. Recommended.
Crime from the Mind of a Woman. Edited by Elizabeth George. Hodder & Stoughton, £18.99 sterling
A reading antidote, this, for the lack of summer weather. Twenty-six crime stories from some of the best women practitioners of the genre. When we see names like Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Joyce Carol Oates, we can be sure we are in good hands.
All of these are on top form, but there are other nuggets from less well-known writers. In the marvellously titled 'The Young Shall See Visions, and the Old Dream Dreams', Kristine Kathryn Rusch has fashioned an allegorical tale spanning seven decades, in which a wrong assumption is only put to rest when two former friends meet up in an old peoples' home. And Charlotte Armstrong provides a nice puzzle for a writer called Mitch, in the story 'St Patrick's Day in the Morning', when he comes to the aid of a lady in distress, who later denies that she ever met him. A satisfying collection for these long, rain-soaked days.
Michael Painter is a writer and critic