The Minotaur

A Novel

By: Barbara Vine

Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor

As soon as Kerstin Kvist arrives at remote, ivy-covered Lydstep Old Hall in Essex, she feels like a character in a gothic novel. A young nurse fresh out of school, Kerstin has been hired for a position with the Cosway family, residents of the Hall for generations. She is soon introduced to her “charge,” John Cosway, a thirty-nine-year-old man whose strange behavior is vaguely explained by his mother and sisters as part of the madness that runs in the family.

Weeks go by at Lydstep with little to mark the passage of time beyond John’s daily walks and the amusingly provincial happenings that engross the Cosway women, and Kerstin occupies her many free hours at the Hall reading or making entries into her diary. Meanwhile, bitter wrangling among Julia Cosway and her four grown daughters becomes increasingly evident. But this is just the most obvious of the tensions that charge the old remote estate, with its sealed rooms full of mystery. Soon Kerstin will find herself in possession of knowledge she will wish she’d never attained, secrets that will propel the occupants of Lydstep Old Hall headlong into sexual obsession, betrayal, and, finally, murder.


Also available in a Random House Large Print edition and as an eBook

Critic reviews

“One of the most remarkable novelists of her generation.” —People

“The best mystery writer in the English-speaking world.” —Time

“My dream writer. Her crime studies are subtle, mysterious affairs that never turn out quite the way you anticipate. Her characters have secret, often ugly depths that make them strangers with uncomfortably familiar features. And her prose style, so intricate in design and supple in execution, has the disquieting intimacy of an alien touch in the dark.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

“Surely one of the greatest novelists presently at work in our language.” —Scott Turow

“Those who haven’t read her books have missed something unique and wonderful.” —Tony Hillerman

“Barbara Vine has transcended her genre by her remarkable imaginative power to explore and illuminate the dark corners of the human psyche.” —P. D. James

“Unequivocally the most brilliant mystery writer of our time. She magnificently triumphs in a style that is uniquely hers and mesmerizing.” —Patricia Cornwell

“Her clear, shapely prose casts the mesmerizing spell of the confessional.” —The New Yorker

“One of the finest practitioners of her craft in the English-speaking world.” —The New York Times Book Review

Enjoyable Listen

Excellent mystery novel up to Barbara Vine’s / Ruth Rendell’s usual high standards. The writing itself is beautifully crafted, the plot intricate, the characters both ordinary and horrible. Having the Swedish nurse narrate is a brilliant choice, allowing the reader to see “ordinary” English lives from a foreign perspective, thus enabling a more gothic sensibility regarding otherness in the “ordinary.” This is furthered by the character John, her so-called “mad schizophrenic” patient who in fact is one of the most sane members of the family, though his Asperger’s syndrome allows them to scapegoat him. The slowly building tension won’t allow you to put the book down once you’ve begun it. An absolutely delightful, strange, mysterious read!

As always, anything read by Roslyn Landor is beautifully done.

Good, but misleading genre

This is a wonderfully written book, with fine lines of humor, suspense, and tragedy. I would not, however, call it a mystery as some have. There is some mystery to the story, in that you glimpse the end in the beginning and you wonder how things get there, but it is not a "whodunnit".
PS: Very well read.

A horrid family

What did you love best about The Minotaur?

Barbara Vine's descriptions of loathsome people. I also like the fact that her books don't start off with the murder that needs to solved. Rather, the tension in the story builds and culminates with the murder.

What did you like best about this story?

The detailed descriptions of country life in England in the 60s.

Have you listened to any of Rosalyn Landor’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Never heard Rosalyn Landor before this. Great voice for characters.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Moved? Disturbed more like it. Some of the family members were truly unwell.

Any additional comments?

I really enjoy Barbara Vine's books, and this one has definitely been one of my favourites.

Top notch Barbara Vine

Barbara Vine draws you along through the story, introducing history, bit by bit, the same way you get to know someone. By the end of the story you find yourself completely intrigued by the goings on. I wanted to listen to it again right after finishing it. Great for any fan of Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell, one of the best of hers I've "read".

SIX STARS.

Six stars. Maybe her best, and she's so amazingly good! I've just re-listened to this book. It was absolutely riveting the second time around, just like the first. It's PERFECT. Perfect characters, perfect everything. I could see it, feel it, smell it. Rosalyn Landor was also, just perfect. This is just a terrific book.