Grasshopper Book

I did not really enjoy this melodramatic story about Clodagh Brown. It is told the n a flashback style where she is waiting for her husband to return. She is
scarred and traumatized by a climbing accident on a pylon that killed her boyfriend Daniel Fleetwood. Coupled with that she is claustrophobic.

She leaves home to stay with an unpleasant relative, Max and his wife Selina in their separate basement flat in Maida Vale a posh area in London. Here she is supposed to study business and psychology at a polytechnic. Instead she meets Silver. He has his parents top floor flat at 15 Russia Road. He has living with him or visiting a group of misfits who share a love of climbing London's roofs.

There is Wim, a gifted climber and lover of chocolate. Liv, an agoraphobic Swedish runaway who is fixated on £2000 she stole from people she was working for and in a weird relationship with Jonny a burglar and sociopath with a nasty violent streak.

They all get involved with helping a couple to escape to Australia with their foster child who the authorities will not let them adopt. Overall the story is well written if a bit far fetched with all the coincidences. Not sure if I like this Ruth Rendell incarnation as Barbara Vine. I prefer her crime novels.