Roots of Evil |
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Sarah Rayne
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Pages: 592 (Paperback)
ISBN: 0743489659
Pub: Pocket Books
Pub date: 2006-04-03
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 4880
Reader Reviews:
guilty pleasure (0/0 people found this helpful)
I feel guilty about enjoying this implausible pot-boiler, but I couldn't put it down after an initially slow start. Seriously, would a concentration camp commandant have been active in English business after the war?
Lots of cliches, but a ripping yarn.
Engrossing and moving (5/5 people found this helpful)
Take it from someone who has lived long and read much, the "ayes" below have it. "Roots Of Evil" is an absolutely engrossing, thoroughly compelling story with characters that you will remember for a long time. The great tribute to any author is that you cannot put a book down. A cliche, I know, but in this case it is true. You will not be disappointed.
Roots of Evil fails to spark (1/7 people found this helpful)
Rather disappointing. I found this novel to be clumsily written with weak characterisation, weak dialogue and a cliche ridden, totally silly plot. One is always prepared to accept coincidence and serendipity in a well-written novel - just think of Dickens - but Rayne's characters are simply cardboard cutouts. I simply could not care in the slightest what happened to any of them because she has failed to make them come alive.
THE SECOND READING IS AS ENJOYABLE AS THE FIRST (3/3 people found this helpful)
I have just re-read Roots of Evil after enjoying Rayne's latest book, Spider Light, and I marvel at how she can conceive such varied and compelling stories and characters. It's rare to come across an author who makes use of such atrocities as the WWII concentration camps in a plot, but Ms Rayne has woven this into her spell-binding book with consummate skill.
Roots of Evil has been well worth a second read and I heartily commend it to anyone who has the remotest interest in this genre - if for no other reason, than to make the acquaintance of the incorrigible Baroness von Wolff and her remarkable exploits in the world of silent movies!
A moving and involving story (5/5 people found this helpful)
I enjoy Sarah Rayne's books very much and found this one thoroughly involving and moving at the same time. This is a long and fascinating story and it unfolds with real pace and confidence. It is always a big "ask" for authors of fiction to involve The Holocaust and to set scenes of a book inside Auschwitz takes some extra courage. But Sarah Rayne is to be congratulated for the accuracy of her research here and for the sensitivity with which she deals with it in the context of what is a work of fiction. A balancing act from which she and the book emerge triumphantly.
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Categories
Amazon.co.uk places this book into the following categories:
Books -> Subjects -> Crime, Thrillers & Mystery -> Thrillers -> Psychological
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> General
Books -> Subjects -> Fiction -> Short Stories -> Thrillers
Books -> Refinements -> Language (feature_browse-bin) -> English
Books -> Refinements -> Age (feature_two_browse-bin)
Books -> Refinements -> Format (binding_browse-bin) -> Paperback
Books -> Refinements -> Condition (condition-type)