This Way Out

Inspector Quantrill #7

by Sheila Radley

Derek and Christine Cartwright live in a lovely house in the Suffolk village of Wyveling. When Christine's mother, Enid, arrives for a visit, Derek welcomes her warmly, but when an accident makes her a permanent resident, Derek's nightmare begins -- horrible dreams of strangling Enid to death. Why would he want her dead? A compelling novel of psychological suspense.

Genres: Mystery, British Literature, Crime

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Sheila Mary Robinson was born and brought up in rural Northamptonshire, one of the fortunate means-tested generation whose further education was free. She went from her village school via high school to London University, where she read history.

She served for nine years as an education officer in the Women’s Royal Air Force, then worked variously as a teacher, a clerk in a shoe factory, a civil servant and in advertising. In the 1960s she opted out of conventional work and joined her partner in running a Norfolk village store and post office, where she began writing fiction in her spare time. Her first books, written as Hester Rowan, were three romantic novels; she then took to crime, and wrote 10 crime novels as Sheila Radley.

Reviews

[Bionic Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Way Out is one of Sheila Radley’s clever crime thrillers, which tend to be a bit above your average “whodunnit”. This one was published in 1989, and is unusual, as the viewpoint character Derek Cartwright is the potential perpetrator of the crime. The reader is invited to empathise with him.

The novel is similar to Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train”, from Patricia Highsmith’s 1950 novel. It is also to a lesser extent reminiscent of “A Shock to the System”, a novel from 1984 by Simon Brett, although in that case the film was quite different. On my first reading I found This Way Out to be a real page-turner, although even then I felt that the main character could have solved some of his problems if he’d tackled them a bit more positively, and thus the credibility waned a little towards the end. My more recent reading via a complete audio book emphasised these faults of credibility, and the ending which I had formerly considered nicely ambiguous, now seemed ill thought-out. Nevertheless it is probably still good as a quick read.

The “Inspector Quantrill” series of books are set in a village, and some are cosy mysteries. This Way Out however, is more of a psychological mystery than some of Sheila Radley’s crime books. It may well appeal to readers who enjoy the stories by Ruth Rendell.

NOTE: Review edited and book rerated after second read.

[Olia Braguța · Rating 5 out of 5]

The short thriller, detective story kept me on the edge from page 1. The author showed the worst part that a good human has inside but never actions upon, unless... they're conflicted.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

"With This Way Out, Sheil Radley gives us something different. Quantrill still plays a role, but the emphasis this time is on psychological suspense. Focusing on relationships and the depth of evil in human nature, the author concocts a shocking, riveting story of how an average man can catapult himself into a vortex from which there is no return.

"Derek and Christine Cartwright live in a lovely house in the Suffolk village of Wyveling. Their three children are grown, an d their youngest, Laurie, has recently died of complications from Down's syndrome.

"For the first time in years Derek and Christine are free of responsibility, free to travel, to be together, to enjoy life. But Christine grieves over Laurie, and Derek suffers for Christine.

"When Christine's mother. Enid, arrives, Derek welcomes her warmly. Perhaps Enid can cheer up the unhappy Christine. Besides, it's only to be a short stay, as Enid spends her summers at the English shore and her winters in sunny Majorca. A brief visit at the Cartwrights' will be good for all concerned.

"But an automobile accident turns Enid's visit into a seemingly permanent residence, and Derek's nightmares begin. He wakes up sweating, the memory of his hands around Enid's throat vivid in his mind. What if he talked in his sleep? What if Christine knew what he was thinking? He likes Enid. Why would he want her dead?

"Derek is a good and honorable man, not the kind who commits murder. Or is he? He is put to the test when a chance encounter with a stranger alters his life forever."
~~front & back flaps

I just couldn't read this book. Basically it's a rehash of Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train, a psychological thriller about two men whose lives become entangled after one of them proposes they 'trade' murders. He then goes ahead and fulfills his end of the imaginary bargain, leading to fatal consequences for both. I intensely dislike psychological thrillers, and reading about poor Derek being forced further and further towards the murder of his mother-in-law by the viciously evil Hugh Packer was really upsetting me. I skipped ahead to the point where DCI Quantrill began the case, but it was no use: the story quickly swerved back to the interplay between Derek and Hugh Packer, and that was enough for me.

The book is of course well written in Sheila Radley's inimitable style, so if you like psychological thrillers, this is a great choice for you. Those readers who prefer English cozies should give this one a wide berth.

[Two Envelopes And A Phone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Due to the abrasive nature of most of this Crime novel, I can’t just leave a 4 star rating for This Way Out, and not mention that this book is not for everyone - and I just think it will often find the wrong reader. This is an “inverted Mystery” - we know the potential murderer’s plan - the detective, Inspector Quantrill, coming into things quite late, and we see him make a lot of false assumptions after misreading the evidence. This whole aspect of the novel actually seems quite convincing; Quantrill is frequently “half right”, or “getting warmer, oh but getting colder now”, because he just can’t see the basic starting point of why all the horribleness has happened. It also becomes obvious that Quantrill is quite smart, it’s just that the murder plan was quite good. It would be hard for any detective to see past the illusions precisely designed to confuse and deceive.

Initially, I did not like the fact that the book basically states - well, through dialogue between two messed-up dudes - that this will be a variation of Strangers on a Train - criss-cross, criss-cross, let’s swap murders! Derek and Hugh are both rather repulsive humans - in different ways - and we know this about Derek even before Hugh, the particularly despicable one, happens to meet him. Derek would like nothing better than for his mother-in-law to go away for good. If you think this is just some puffed-up hatred of a mother-in-law gone wild - or that an inheritance is involved - think again; by the time Creep & Creepier are talking of swapping a smothering for death by insulin overdose, with great alibis to boot, we know Derek’s motive is a very complicated thing indeed. Hugh, who we end up spending less time with, is more plainly just a monster.

Derek’s wife, Christine, is another character we get to know quite well - and, just like Derek, she experiences some rather revolting private relief - even quiet, if somewhat guilt-infected happiness - over something terrible that happened to one of their children, which had the effect of making their lives easier. It’s one of the hardest parts of the book to take…or at least it was for me, because it would have been nice to be able to sympathize with Christine while I slowly came to be repulsed by Derek, well beyond a rather shocking 40 opening pages. The hectoring, ever-present, live-in mother-in-law also comes off as a rather unlikable character…but given what Hugh’s plan is for her, I certainly didn’t want her to die.

Just when I wanted to wash all the characters off of me with Lava soap, I realized it wasn’t ALL the characters I despised…um, well yeah, just the main ones, but when I plugged my nose around Hugh, Derek, Christine, and even the mom at times, I did realize that this was not a book where you can ding it with a low rating and say “I hated it because ALL the characters were awful”. There are some interesting supporting characters, some with healthy morals and homicide-free psyches, including of course the cops working the case resulting from the swap-murders plan (that did not go precisely as drawn up). It’s just that the bad apples are rotten as hell, and they are the stars of the show.

I became morbidly fascinated, more and more, with every disgustingly bleak development that occurred. I’m going to talk about the dog for a second; I worried about the dog in a book like this - and the dog gets treated pretty shabbily in one stressful chapter - but, as this subplot is blooming, just be aware, if you ever read this book, that the dog does okay. In fact, the dog ends up leaving a pretty cool clue - good dog! - as a certain cad tries to abandon him in the woods.

This is not a Cosy, this is more like a Noir novel, taking the Inverted Mystery scenarios of the Golden Age and updating them for a 1980s audience, by making the key psychologies involved really repellent, and making the actual events turn out to be much more disturbing than even what was eventually planned. I was reminded of the first time I watched the movie Very Bad Things, where I could not look away despite how revolting all people and their choices were, with the worst always coming. Actually, the worst in This Way Out is probably around the middle of the novel, and this novel is truly only for readers who can handle a Crime story with the most extreme kind of depravity you could imagine. You gotta be able to take some pretty brutal scenes, without a lot of warning that things are gonna get that bad.

The ending is abrupt. If there is a Hitchcock feel to this…first, I would say that you need to be able to handle something like Frenzy, not “just” Psycho. And secondly, like in Frenzy (and other Hitchcock outings), something suddenly happens and it’s a fade to black, The End. No denouement - and certainly no “full” ending designed to show that the world gives out full closure when it is desperately needed for a peaceful walkaway. There is a powerful climax, doing a final twist and scream after a long dance marathon of horrible, absolutely obscene gyrations - and then suddenly the book bows and sashays out. Keep two things in mind: Derek is a complete jerk, and Hugh is a frigging psychopath.

[Damaskcat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Derek Cartwright meets the unpleasant Hugh Packer in a traffic jam. Hugh’s father-in-law is incapacitated following a stroke and Hugh wants to hasten his death but doesn’t want to be caught committing murder. Derek keeps dreaming about murdering his mother-in-law who has taken up residence with him and his wife Christine. In spite of his nightmares he doesn’t really want his mother-in-law dead he just wants her to return to her own home and give him some space to help his wife deal with the aftermath of cancer.

Unfortunately for Derek, Hugh is deadly serious and he keeps turning up wherever Derek is and bullying him into taking part in his plan because it worked in the film ‘Strangers on a Train.’ Swop murders and no one will suspect you. The book is mainly taken up with Derek’s dithering about the whole thing and trying to find ways out of it. There is very little about the subsequent police investigation and the ending is a little inconclusive.

I found my sympathy with Derek waned a little towards the end of the book. I felt there were times when he could have easily solved his problems by going to the police and explaining what Packer was suggesting or even by approaching a solicitor and getting an injunction. As a study of conscience it was interesting and kept me reading but I didn’t find Packer convincing – he was a two dimensional character. I suppose I didn’t find it possible to suspend my disbelief in the story though it is well written. Derek was presented as an intelligent person and to my mind he could easily have extricated himself from his problems if he’d given it any constructive thought.

[Kathi · Rating 2 out of 5]

A far-fetched premise... and once the reader accepts it, the story just gets more absurd because of the lies, necessary to the story but really difficult to accept. And an unsatisfying ending that is, for this reader, too open-ended.

The parts that were most interesting to me were the death of the daughter who had Down Syndrome and the breast cancer experience of the wife--I have a sister (still living) with Down Syndrome and had breast cancer 10 years ago. The rest was "meh" for me.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't run across this British author before, but I would definitely read more of her work. I had to keep reading to see if the main character would ever find a way out of the mess he'd created.