The Minotaur.(Book review)

Byline: Ron Bernas

``The Minotaur'' by Barbara Vine; Shaye Areheart ($25)

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In "The Minotaur," a young nurse slightly adrift in the world answers an ad for a post as a companion to a mentally ill man living with his family in the English countryside. While there, she becomes an unwilling witness to the depravities of the human soul. And, at the end of it all, gentle reader, she finds love.

It sounds like the basis for a novel by one of the Bronte sisters or even Daphne du Maurier. It's not. It's queen of suspense Barbara Vine having a bit of a lark updating a century-old novel style in her own disturbing way. It's an interesting conceit …