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kathrinpassig's review against another edition
3.0
Leider unrekonstruierbar, wie das auf meine Leseliste gekommen ist. Nach dem ersten Drittel habe ich oft darüber nachgedacht, aufzuhören. Im Mittelteil hängt es lange durch, alle Figuren nerven, es ist unendlich weitschweifig erzählt (Essen! Kleidung! 1000 uninteressante Gedanken!). Obwohl überall "literary!" draufsteht, ist es stilistisch nicht toll (ständig sind Frauen atemlos, und nur eine davon, weil sie gerade eine Treppe hochgestiegen ist), und die ganze Handlung funktioniert nur, weil einfach nie irgendeine Frau (vor allem die Protagonistin, aber auch alle anderen) aussprechen kann, was sie tatsächlich sagen will. Drei Sterne statt zwei, weil ich doch wissen wollte, wie es ausgeht, und weil es am Ende weniger öde ist als in der Mitte.
rleibrock's review against another edition
3.0
I read this when I first moved to New York and was living alone in that crappy 3rd floor walk-up. This much more romantic view of NYC didn't exactly make me feel better but I still enjoyed the tense mystery.
labtracks's review against another edition
3.0
My first Smiley novel. This one was actually pretty good, better than I expected, but I must admit my expectations were not high. This book started strong, sucked me in and made me attached to Alice. I liked her, the divorced librarian originally from Minnesota and now taking on the Big Apple with a close-knit group of friends.
Mystery and some twists kept me guessing about who the murderer/s might be and for a while I actually cared who did it. But just over half-way through this book went stagnant. Too many side dramas, too many other things to focus on and distract. The ending was disappointing. I expected more of a show down, more detective work, more denials, more near-death encounters or actual deaths... I expected anything else but the anti-climactic occurrences that are packed into the final chapters of this book.
In the end I still like Alice and I was happy for her situation when I closed the back cover, but after starting the novel with a banging double murder, overall the ending could have been more of a page turner. I kept turning the pages to finish the book after reading that far, not to solve the mystery and find the killer... not the best reasons for pages to keep turning.
Mystery and some twists kept me guessing about who the murderer/s might be and for a while I actually cared who did it. But just over half-way through this book went stagnant. Too many side dramas, too many other things to focus on and distract. The ending was disappointing. I expected more of a show down, more detective work, more denials, more near-death encounters or actual deaths... I expected anything else but the anti-climactic occurrences that are packed into the final chapters of this book.
In the end I still like Alice and I was happy for her situation when I closed the back cover, but after starting the novel with a banging double murder, overall the ending could have been more of a page turner. I kept turning the pages to finish the book after reading that far, not to solve the mystery and find the killer... not the best reasons for pages to keep turning.
mary412's review against another edition
3.0
I'm sure I read this book when it came out in the early 80s, but I don't remember much about it. I'm giving it three stars because... well, Jane Smiley.
12roxy's review against another edition
4.0
Jane Smiley, literary chameleon, does a creditable job with this mystery set in NYC in 1980. It's more of a psychological study than a page turner. Of course, the characters are well-developed, and there are many well-written passages. I'm ambivalent about the protagonist (I think I'm supposed to be) who tries to build a fantasy world around herself when the real one (other than the murders, attempted and otherwise!) seems quite cozy, with good job, good lover, great rent-controlled apartment...but I can't decide if it's because she's not too bright or because she doesn't appreciate what she has.
manwithanagenda's review against another edition
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
When I found a Jane Smiley title I'd never heard of before, I decided I'd find out some more about her as an author. She truly is a literary chameleon, interested in taking on different genres and styles, and, two for two, telling a great story. 'Duplicate Keys' centers on Alice Ellis and her close-knit group of friends who have kept together since college. One morning Alice discovers two of them murdered in an apartment for which all of them held keys.
The mystery and thriller aspects might move slower than the typical novel in the genre, but I appreciated the extra time spent developing Alice and her relationships with her friends, full of reticence and habit, running hot and cold over different periods of her life, it felt very real to me. My own group of friends that date back to my teens may not match up with Alice's, but the dynamics of such long relationships were there, and the necessity of suspecting those friends of murder justifies Alice's constant reassessment and wool-gathering. When Smiley does decide to spike up the tension she delivers a couple scenes worthy of a thriller!. A little excessive of me, but I'm going to try to follow my impulses a little more, seeing as how much that worked out in here.
The mystery and thriller aspects might move slower than the typical novel in the genre, but I appreciated the extra time spent developing Alice and her relationships with her friends, full of reticence and habit, running hot and cold over different periods of her life, it felt very real to me. My own group of friends that date back to my teens may not match up with Alice's, but the dynamics of such long relationships were there, and the necessity of suspecting those friends of murder justifies Alice's constant reassessment and wool-gathering. When Smiley does decide to spike up the tension she delivers a couple scenes worthy of a thriller!. A little excessive of me, but I'm going to try to follow my impulses a little more, seeing as how much that worked out in here.
aemorrison2001's review against another edition
2.0
I'm a fan of Jane Smiley but Duplicate Keys didn't grip me the way Moo or A Thousand Acres did. An interesting but predictable mystery, apart from one gripping suspense sequence towards the end, Duplicate Keys was slow moving and frequently dull. I entertained myself through the slow bits by trying to decide if Smiley was actually basing her characters entirely around diagnostic criteria for specific mental health problems in the DSMIV. No single character rang 100% true and the main character's behavior was so inconsistent it became frustrating and distracting.
nocto's review against another edition
2.0
Hmmmm. I left this book with 9/15 chapters completed five years ago. I'm the sort of person who generally soldiers on through books I'm not enjoying and all my memories were that I did enjoy this book. So I've been kind of bemused for a long time that I didn't finish this book up and decided it was about time for another go.
I enjoyed the beginning, like last time, but hit a severe case of the blahs in the middle. I guess that was like last time too. I could have happily abandoned it again.
In the end it was okay. I expected more really. It turned out to be an alright mystery novel, but I was expecting something more exciting, more bent, more literary, more rule breaking and not at all like a standard mystery.
I enjoyed the beginning, like last time, but hit a severe case of the blahs in the middle. I guess that was like last time too. I could have happily abandoned it again.
In the end it was okay. I expected more really. It turned out to be an alright mystery novel, but I was expecting something more exciting, more bent, more literary, more rule breaking and not at all like a standard mystery.
boxofdelights's review against another edition
3.0
This book presents itself as a mystery or thriller, and it does have some of the trappings of those genres, but it is mostly about friendship: how much you can love someone, and how little you can understand them.
"[C}ouldn't this last for years, in a way that marriage could never last, without effort, without swings in desire, or mistakes in translation, or the balancing of needs that marriages always demanded? People stayed home for passion and went out for companionship, when actually the reverse would work much better."
"[C}ouldn't this last for years, in a way that marriage could never last, without effort, without swings in desire, or mistakes in translation, or the balancing of needs that marriages always demanded? People stayed home for passion and went out for companionship, when actually the reverse would work much better."