The Portobello area of West London has a rich personality - vibrant, brilliant in colour, noisy, with graffiti that approach art, bizarre and splendid. An indefinable edge to it adds a spice of danger. There is nothing safe about Portobello...
A Ruth Rendell mystery, first published in 1979. Alan Groombridge is married to a woman he doesn't like, is a bank manager of a tiny branch, and is doomed to a life of boredom and tedious routine. All that saves him is a fantasy of stealing enough of the bank's money for just one year of freedom.
The dark, good-looking Guy is from a council flat. Leonora has a mews house in Holland Park, and her mother doesn't care for Guy - or the way he makes his money. His obsession with Leonora increases, even after they have grown apart, until eventually it creates in him a murderous madness.
A classic Rendellian loner, Mix Cellini is superstitious about the number 13. Living in a decaying house in Notting Hill, Mix is obsessed with 10 Rillington Place, where the notorious John Christie committed a series of foul murders. He is also infatuated with a beautiful model who lives nearby - a woman who would not look at him twice. Mix's landlady, Gwedolen Chawcer is equally reclusive - living her life through her library of books. Both landlady and lodger inhabit weird worlds of their own. But when reality intrudes into Mix's life, a long pent-up violence explodes.
According to the London Sunday Express, Ruth Rendell is "one of the best novelists writing today." For readers new to her work, this collection of five mysteries, all cases for Detective Chief Inspector Wexford, is a perfect introduction. In Wexford, Rendell has created a rare and endearing character. Like all memorable and remarkable individuals, Wexford is a man of great intuitive power. His best performances are flashes of insight, solutions that seem more inspired by instinct than intellect.
