Ruth Rendell Libri

Benet Archdale ha finalmente costruito la propria vita. Le esperienze infantili legate alla madre affetta da disturbi mentali sembrano essere state elaborate e superate. Come giovane scrittrice di successo, vive a Londra con il suo piccolo figlio James, la sua più grande gioia. Tuttavia, la sua serenità viene turbata. La madre di Benet, affetta da schizofrenia, torna a farle visita dopo anni. Apparentemente guarita e normale, la sua presenza si rivela inaspettatamente devastante per Benet, portando a una catastrofe che sconvolge la sua vita.

Il giorno di San Valentino quattro membri della famiglia Coverdale vengono trucidati dalla loro governante Eunice Parchman e dalla sua amica Joan Smith. Due settimane dopo, Eunice viene arrestata per il pluriomicidio... perché non sa leggere. Nell'elegante casa dei Coverdale, dove la cultura permea l'atmosfera e i libri sembrano un elemento indispensabile della vita quotidiana, il buio della mente, l'ottusità dell'ingegno, la non conoscenza di ciò che significa la parola scritta, ha provocato guasti tali da trasformare una donna in una belva che uccide perché le sembra che l'unica liberazione possibile dal suo cupo segreto di analfabeta sia il riscatto attraverso il sangue.

Uno scrittore squattrinato rimpiange la sua amante che lo spingeva all'assassinio del marito. All'inizio rifiuta, ma poi...

La famiglia di Harold, vedovo senza troppi rimpianti che si lascia trascinare dalla vita, è una famiglia media inglese. Due figli: Dolly, sfigurata da una voglia sulla faccia, e Pup, svogliato cacciatore di facili emozioni che si dedica alla magia nel tentativo di trarre qualcosa da un'esistenza senza prospettive. Ma mentre Pup riesce, con le sue forze e grazie alla consapevolezza di poter continuare il lavoro del padre, a uscire dal vicolo cieco in cui molti giovani della sua generazione si riducono, Dolly - copmpluice la cicatrice che le impedisce di avere una vita socialmente normale - precipita sempre di più in una spirale di alienazione, di alcolismo e di solitudine malat

L'ispettore capo Reg Wexford è chiamato ad indagare sull'omicidio di Annette Bystock una riservata, non più giovanissima, quanto "comune", impiegata dell'ufficio assistenza all'occupazione della cittadina di Kingsmarkham, nel Sussex in una afosa estate inglese alla vigilia delle elezioni comunali. Sullo sfondo del problema della disoccupazione che coinvolge più classi sociali e generazioni, quello che appare un delitto passionale, intrecciandosi con le indagini per la scomparsa di Melanie, la figlia ventenne dei coniugi Akande (colti, benestanti, di colore), avvenuta proprio dopo una visita all'ufficio dove lavorava Annette, si allarga alla tematica della convivenza razziale e i suoi pregiudizi, che sommessamente ma consistentemente acquistano evidenza e spessore agli occhi dell'acuto Wexford che sperimenta proprio su se stesso quanto subdolo sia il pregiudizio al ritrovamento del cadavere di un giovane corpo martoriato appartenuto ad una ragazza di colore. Un crimine insospettato nella contemporanea civile Inghilterra (e non solo): la perdita del rispetto della dignità umana e che accomuna le vittime ai carnefici al tragico compiersi del progetto di inevitabile distruzione.

Mix Cellini è un superstizioso del numero tredici. Abita in un palazzo fatiscente a Notting Hill, ed è ossessionato dall'appartamento al numero 10 di Rillington Place, dove il famoso John Christie ha commesso una serie di crimini efferati. Cellini subisce anche il fascino di una modella, sua vicina: una donna che mai gli concederebbe la sua attenzione. La padrona di casa di Miz è ugualmente schiva nei suoi confronti e passa il suo tempo nella biblioteca personale. Ma quando la realtà impone la propria esistenza nella vita dell'uomo, una violenza a lungo repressa esplode in tutta la sua forza.

Sette settimane passarono senza che Ismay ci pensasse. Poi qualcosa lo riportava alla mente o riemergeva in un sogno. Il sogno iniziava sempre allo stesso modo. Lei e sua madre salivano le scale, seguendo Heather attraverso la camera da letto verso ciò che si trovava dall'altra parte, non un bagno nel sogno, ma una stanza con pavimento e pareti di marmo. Al centro c'era un lago di acqua cristallina. La cosa bianca nell'acqua si avvicinava a lei, il suo viso sommerso, e sua madre diceva, in modo assurdo, "Non guardare!" L'uomo morto era il patrigno di Ismay, Guy. Ora, nove anni dopo, lei e sua sorella Heather vivevano ancora nella stessa casa a Clapham, ma era stata divisa in due appartamenti autonomi. Loro madre viveva al piano superiore con la sorella, Pamela. E il bagno, dove Guy era annegato, era stato demolito. Ismay e Heather si trovano bene insieme e non discutono mai dei cambiamenti nella casa, tanto meno di ciò che accadde quel giorno di agosto. Ma ora, con dolorosa inevitabilità, iniziano a emergere verità nascoste.

An omnibus edition of three Ruth Rendell crime novels - "A Demon in My View", "A Judgement in Stone" and "The Face of Trespass".

These 16 stories explore the nightmarish point where sensuality and horror meet. Displaying their unique talents with a focus on dark fantasy, each writer offers a sophisticated tale that will delight fans of horror, erotica, and quality short fiction alike. Authors include Clive Barker, Joyce Carol Oates, Dan Simmons and Doug Clegg.

Four collections of some of Ruth Rendell's greatest original crime thrillers.

This Ruth Rendell omnibus of Inspector Wexford novels includes "A New Lease of Death", "The Best Man to Die", "Wolf to the Slaughter" and "Put On By Cunning". The author won the Crime Writer's Association Gold Dagger in 1976 for "A Demon in my View".

Two long stories, born from surprisingly fertile imaginations... In "The Arbutus," Ruth Rendell portrays an English family on vacation in Spain whose summer is marred by a mysterious and heartbreaking event. In a long flashback, the sister recalls the cursed stay: the exoticism of Mediterranean holidays intertwines with the bitterness of a fate forever marked by tragedy. Forever? Of course not, as Rendell reserves a series of twists for the end that are both subtle and skillful. This great mistress of suspense has invited a young talent, Helen Simpson, to appear alongside her in this volume. Simpson's story, "Flesh and Grass," immerses us in a macabre world populated by sinister characters: a chef with strange recipes, a perverse doctor engaged in dubious machinations, a little girl murdered in the forest... Woven with strange atmospheres and an unusual style, this text takes us into a decidedly unsettling universe.

This first in a series of anthologies sponsored by the British Crime Writers Association features 22 short stories with urban themes. The editor notes that he was looking for stories that offered imaginative takes on the familiar idea of big-city cr

An omnibus edition of three Inspector Wexford mysteries - Wolf to the Slaughter, Put on by Cunning and The Speaker of Mandarin.

Jenny's marriage is loveless, and she is having an affair. She works at an old people's home, where she is especially fond of Stella, a woman dying of cancer - whose own secrets parallel Jenny's - with the difference that she may have been involved in murdering her lover's husband.

Elena asks that you come to the House of Swans at once... Compelled by this message, the wealthy, sybaritic Sextus Roscius goes not to his harlot, but to his doom—savagely murdered by unknown assassins. In the unseasonable heat of a spring morning in 80 B.C., Gordianus the Finder is summoned to the house of Cicero, a young advocate staking his reputation on this case. The charge is patricide; the motive, a son's greed. The punishment, rooted deep in Roman tradition, is horrific beyond imagining.Gordianus's investigation takes him through the city's raucous, pungent streets and deep into urban Umbria, unraveling layers of deceit, twisted passions, and murderous desperation. From pompous, rouged nobles to wily slaves to citizens of seemingly simple virtue, the case becomes a political nightmare. As the defense proceeds toward a devastating confrontation in the Forum, one man's fate may be threaten the very leaders of Rome itself.

In the long, hot summer of 1976, a group of young people is camping in Wyvis Hall. Adam, Rufus, Shiva, Vivien and Zosie hardly ask why they are there or how they are to live; they scavenge, steal and sell the family heirlooms. In short, they exist. Ten years later, the bodies of a woman and child are discovered in the Hall's animal cemetery. Which woman? Whose child?

The Hillyard family appears respectable, but beneath the surface, Vera and her younger sister Eden are engaged in a fierce and secretive struggle over a hidden truth.

This omnibus includes three Inspector Wexford novels, Some Lie and Some Die, Shake Hands Forever and A Sleeping Life. The author has won three Gold Dagger Awards from the Crime Writers Association and three Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America.

There are only two things in life that interest Stanley: solving crossword puzzles, and getting his hands on his mother-in-law's money. And in all those years it has never once occurred to Stanley that she would try to outsmart him and the money might never be his.

The Killing Doll: Weaves together the ultimately deadly stories of Pup Yearman, who sold his soul to the devil, his unhappy older sister, and butcher-knife keeper Diarmit Bawne. .... Live Flesh: After ten years in prison for shooting -- and permanently crippling -- a young policeman, Victor Jenner is released to a strange new world and told to make a new life for himself. It's hard to fill the days, but at least there's one blessing -- he was never convicted for all those rapes he committed. Then Victor meets David, the policeman he shot all those years ago, and David's beautiful girlfriend, Clare. And suddenly Victor's new life is starting to look an awful lot like the old one . . .

Simon Serrailler's story began in The Various Haunts of Men (about a serial killer) and continued with The Pure in Heart (about a kidnapped schoolboy) Susan Hill is not afraid to tackle difficult issues, nor to face up to the realities of st

In traditional fairytales the handsome prince rescues the beautiful princess from her wicked stepmother, and the couple live happily ever after. But in Ruth Rendell's dark and damaged contemporary universe, innocent dreams can turn into the most terrible

Detective Mike Burden's wife has just died, and his sister-in-law is staying at his house to help take care of his two children. He is so utterly miserable, and grief stricken, that he can't see how much they all need him to focus himself on his home life. Partially because of his inability to deal with his personal life, when a 5-year-old boy disappears, he throws himself whole-heartedly into the investigation. He becomes over involved with the boy's mother. The recent disappearance of a 12-year-old girl makes the case more worrisome.

Most people would have screamed. Mrs Hathall made no sound. She had seen death many times, but she had never witnessed death by violence. Heavily, she plodded across the room and descended the stairs to where her son waited. "There's been an accident," she said. "Your wife's dead." Chief Inspector Wexford could discover no motive, no reason, no suspect. All he had were his own intuitive suspicions. Probably he was reading meaning where there was none; probably Angela Hathall really had picked up a stranger, and that stranger had killed her. But why such doubt? Is Wexford becoming cynical and untrusting? Or is this simply one of the most ingenious crimes he has ever tackled?

Sir Manuel Carmargue, one of the greatest flautists of his time, was dead. Misadventure. An old man, ankle-deep in snow, he lost his foothold in the dark, slipping into the water to be trapped under a lid of ice. Only a glove remained to point to where he lay, one of its fingers rising out of the drifts. There's nothing Chief Inspector Wexford likes better than an open-and-shut case. They're so restful. And yet there are one or two niggling doubts - and the disturbing return of Carmargue's daughter, now a considerable heiress, after an absence of nineteen years. Is Wexford going to listen to that nagging inner voice of his? And if he does, what exactly does he plan to do?

When Sandor snatched little Joe from the path of a London Tube train, he was quick to make clear the terms of the rescue. 'I saved your life,' he told the homeless youngster, 'so your life belongs to me now'. Sandor began to tell him a fairy-tale: an ageing prince, a kidnapped princess chained by one ankle, a missed rendezvous.

Gone with the Wind is a great romantic story of love and war and one of the best-selling books of all time. In Part 2, the American Civil War has destroyed Scarlett O’Hara’s comfortable world. Will she lose her home too? Or can she save it and rebuild her life?

Chief Inspector Wexford, injured in a car bombing, must rely on Detective Mike Burden to catch a killer in what appears to be a murder without motive   Chief Inspector Wexford couldn’t know that the bundle of rags in the parking garage concealed a body. He’d just been doing a bit of light shopping, after all, not looking for dead housewives. Wexford won’t be on the case for long; a car bomb sends him to the hospital, and Inspector Mike Burden must match wits with a would-be murderer. But just how close to the edge of madness must Burden go to catch a killer?   With rich characterization Rendell plumbs the depths of human character, revealing the secrets that lie hidden in the most ordinary lives.

"When her mother, Eve, tells Liza that she must leave their remote home, the gatehouse of a country mansion, Liza is terrified. Although seventeen years of age, she has never been on a bus or a train, has never played with a child of her own age. She has almost no knowledge of a world described by her mother as evil and destructive. Their strange, enclosed life together is over because Eve has killed a man. And he is not the first. With 100 pounds in cash, Liza is cast adrift. However, she is not alone. There is one particular secret that she has kept from her mother - her love affair with a young man who worked in the big house. With him, gradually Liza learns about the world, about herself, and must come to terms with the possibility that the murderous violence of her mother may be present in her." -back cover.

Eleven masterful, eerie suspense tales by the outstanding English mystery writer show what happens when the sinister thoughts of ordinary people are unleashed

Jarvis lives in a crumbling house with a view of the Jubilee Line: he loves the tube with all its secrets - its hidden tunnels, its mysterious "ghost" stations, its incidents and accidents, which he records. He lives in a house which was once a school, but now he lets out rooms.

Chief Inspector Wexford is in China, visiting ancient tombs and palaces with a group of British tourists. After their return to England, one of his fellow tourists is found murdered. As he questions other members of the group, Wexford finds secrets of greed, treachery, theft, and adultery, leading the distressed inspector to ask not who is innocent, but who is least guilty . . .

Susan Townsend was the only resident with no interest in her next-door neighbour's affair. Yet it was Susan who found the bodies of the lovers, locked not in passion, but in death.

Who could have suspected that the exciting stag party for the groom would be the prelude to the murder of his close friend Charlie Hatton? And Charlie's death was only the first in a string of puzzling murders involving small-time gangsters, cheating husbands, and loose women. Now Chief Inspector Wexford and his assistant join forces with the groom to track down a killer . . .

Stephen Whalby loves to walk the moor. It is a dark and forbidding place, but it is his. When the body of a young blonde woman is found there, her face horrifically disfigured, the victim of a merciless murderer, his beloved moor is tainted with suspicion and terror. Then a second woman goes missing on the moor and Stephen watches as the search party make their way across the treacherous murder scene. Not to be usurped by a killer or a victim; he, and only he, is the master of the moor.

The seventh book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford. But then he discovers that his nephew Howard is heading the investigation into the macabre murder of Loveday Morgan, whose body was found abandoned in Kenbourne Cemetery.

Rhoda Comfrey's death seemed unremarkable; the real mystery was her life. In A Sleeping Life , master mystery writer Ruth Rendell unveils an elaborate web of lies and deception painstakingly maintained by a troubled soul. A wallet found in Comfrey's handbag leads Inspector Wexford to Mr. Grenville West, a writer whose plots revel in the blood, thunder, and passion of dramas of old; whose current whereabouts are unclear; and whose curious secretary--the plain Polly Flinders--provides the Inspector with more questions than answers. And when a second Grenville West comes to light, Wexford faces a dizzying array of possible scenarios--and suspects--behind the Comfrey murder. Brilliantly entertaining, exceptionally crafted, A Sleeping Life evokes the dark realities, half-truths, and flights of fancy that constitute a life.

A mutilated body found at a rock festival. In spite of dire predictions, the rock festival in Kingsmarkham seemed to be going off without a hitch, until the hideously disfigured body is discovered in a nearby quarry. And soon Wexford is investigating the links between a local girl gone bad and a charismatic singer who inspires an unwholesome devotion in his followers.Some Lie and Some Dieis a devilishly absorbing novel, in which Wexford's deductive powers come up against the aloof arrogance of pop stardom. With her Inspector Wexford novels, Ruth Rendell, winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award, has added layers of depth, realism and unease to the classic English mystery. For the canny, tireless, and unflappable policeman is an unblinking observer of human nature, whose study has taught him that under certain circumstances the most unlikely people are capable of the most appalling crimes. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Murder, corruption, blackmail. All these are part of someone else's world, not part of the everyday lives of ordinary people...or are they? This is a collection of sinister stories from the bestselling author who won The Sunday Times Literary Award for 1990.

A by-pass is planned in Kingsmarkham - that will destroy its peace and the natural habitat forever. Dora Wexford joins the protest movement. But Wexford must be more circumspect. Trouble is expected. But before the protesters make their presence felt, the

A woman phoned to say she and her husband went to Paris for the weekend, leaving their children with a - well, teen-sitter, I suppose, got back last night to find the lot gone and naturally she assumes they've all drowned.'There hadn't been anything like

This title contains two novels by Ruth Rendell - 'The Bridesmaid' and 'To Fear a Painted Devil'.

Sixteen-year-old Elvira's mother is dead. Elvira is sad, of course, but not so sad as her younger sister Spinny. Spinny is afraid their father, Luke, will be heartbroken, but Elvira knows better -- after all, Luke has her to take her mother's place. But then Luke brings home a pretty young woman and introduces her as his fiancee, and Elvira decides that she will stop at nothing to stop her father's marriage . . .

New and uncollected tales of murder, mischief, magic and madness. Ruth Rendell was an acknowledged master of psychological suspense: these are ten (and a quarter) of her most chillingly compelling short stories, collected here together for the first time. In these tales, a businessman boasts about cheating on his wife, only to find the tables turned. A beautiful country rectory reverberates to the echo of a historical murder. A compulsive liar acts on impulse, only to be lead inexorably to disaster. And a wealthy man finds there is more to his wife's kidnapping than meets the eye.Atmospheric, gripping and never predictable, this is Ruth Rendell at her inimitable best. The stories are: Never Sleep in a Bed Facing a Mirror; A Spot of Folly; The Price of Joy; The Irony of Hate; Digby's Wives; The Haunting of Shawley Rectory; A Drop Too Much; The Thief; The Long Corridor of Time; In the Time of his Prosperity; and Trebuchet.Introduction from Sophie Hannah.

A collection of five short mystery stories featuring Chief Inspector Wexford.

Martin Urban has always led a confortable and safe life. Until he wins a fortune on the pools and decides to use some of his new-found wealth to help those less fortunate than himself...Finn lives a dangerous life and he too comes into some money. But his came in cash, wrapped in newspaper. Finn is also interested in helping people - as long as the price is right.If all had remained as it had been, the path of Martin and that of Finn would never have crossed. But Martin's money - which he hopes to use to change the lives of strangers - changes his own life as well. And so it is that the good intentions of one become fatally entangled with the macabre madness of the other.

Philip Wardman had more than just trhe ordinary squeamishness where death was concerned. Yet he could hardly avoid the suspicious disappearance of his sister's friend Rebecca Neave, especially when everyone was ascribing the cause to murder. Philip's fenimine ideal is the statue of the Roman Goddess Flora in his mother's garden. His marble Flora doesn't fade, doesn't alter, doesn't die. But then he meets Senta Pelham a beautiful, sensual, childlike actress who flgrantly disdains the morals of society and passionately desires the elusive Philip - container.

Unkindness: the collective word for a group of ravens. They are not particularly predatory birds . . . but neither are they soft and submissive. Detective Chief Inspector Wexford thought he was merely doing a neighbourly good deed when he agreed to talk to Joy Williams about her missing husband. And he certainly didn't expect to be investigating a most unusual homicide . . .

This is a haunting & dramatic collection of long & short stories which reveal the amazing range of one of Britain's major novelists. It features the first Wexford short story to have appeared since Means of Evil.

Alan Groombridge had a fantasy. Husband to a woman he didn't like, father of two children he had never wanted, and manager of the second smallest branch of the Anglian-Victoria bank in the country, Alan was doomed to a life of domestic boredom and tedious routine. All that saved him was one fantasy: stealing enough of the bank's money to allow him just one year of freedom - one year in which to live a different sort of life. But one day there was no more dreaming and no more games. The Anglian-Victoria bank was robbed and both manager and cashier disappeared. ln place of the dull and dreary repetition that had once existed, there came a brutal, chilling nightmare that might never, never end.

London's wealthiest, poorest, kindest, and most vicious citizens all cross paths in Regents Park. Quiet, pretty Mary Jago could never have suspected that a series of unspeakable murders in the park contained threads that tangled around her simple, ordinary life.

She waits for him in the dark, her mind and body perfect, passive, until one day, when he goes to the cellar, and she is gone . . . In A Demon in My View, Ruth Rendell creates a character as frightening as he is fascinating. Mild-mannered Arthur Johnson has never known how to talk to women. And his loneliness has perverted his desire for love and respect into a carefully controlled penchant for violence. One floor below him, a scholar finishing his thesis on psychopathic personalities is about to stumble—quite literally—upon one of Arthur's many secrets. Haunting and intelligent, A Demon in My View shows the startling results of this chilling alchemy of two very disparate minds—one pathological and the other obsessed with pathology.

The second book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford. Called in to investigate, Chief Inspector Wexford quickly determines that the Nightingales were considered the perfect couple - wealthy, attractive and without an enemy in the world. Someone who hated - or perhaps loved - her enough to beat her to death.

Tim Cornish, a creative writing student, sits composing a confession: an admission of a crime committed two years ago that has yet to be discovered. It began when he first encountered Ivo, a magnetic man, older than himself, and felt compelled to kiss him. By the time they travel together to Alaska's glacial wastes, Tim has fallen in and out of love with Ivo; his real passion is now only for Isabel whom he has met in Ivo's absence. The horror of Tim's subsequent journey with Ivo, battling with disgust and despair, may andure in his memory for ever

Sergeant Caleb Martin of Kingsmarkham CID had no idea just how terminally unlucky the thirteenth of May would prove. Even alive, he could have no inkling of the chain of bloody events to follow-At first the bloodbath at Tancred House looks like the desperate work of a burglar panicked into murder. The sole survivor of the massacre, seventeen-year-old Daisy Flory, remembers the events imperfectly, and her confused account of the fatal night seems to confirm this theory. But more and more, Chief Inspector Wexford is convinced that the crime lies closer to home, and that it has sinister links to the murder of Sergeant Martin some ten months earlier ...

Safe houses and secret message drops, double crosses and defections -- it sounds like the stuff of sophisticated espionage, but the agents are only schoolboys engaged in harmless play. But John Creevey doesn't know this. To him, the messages he decodes with painstaking care are the communications of dangerous and evil men, and as he comes face to face with the fact of his beloved wife Jennifer's defection, he begins to see a way to get back at the man she left him for. And soon the schoolboys are playing more than just a game . . .

This omnibus contains two of Ruth Rendell's crime novels - 'The Lake of Darkness' and 'The Veiled One'.

Blood. That's what Martin Nanther's great-grandfather Henry was interested in. As Queen Victoria's faboured physician he became expert in diseases of the blood, particularly the royal disease of haemophilia. But, as Martin discovers whilst researching Henry's life, he was not just expert - he was obsessed. Yet reading between the lines of Henry's medical essays and diary, Martin begins to suspect that his great-grandfather was less than candid about both his life and work. What was he trying to conceal? Were the tragedies of his family life more than mere accidents? And what implications does it have for Martin, the blood doctor's descendant?

Like any small community, Linchester has its intrigues: love affairs, money problems, unhappy marriages. But the gossip is elevated to new heights when young Patrick Selby dies on the very night of his beautiful wife's birthday party. The whole neighbourhood was there, witness to the horrible attack of wasp stings Patrick suffered at the end of the evening. But did Patrick die of a wasp sting? Dr. Greenleaf thinks not. Heart failure, more likely . Still, Greenleaf isn't at peace about his death. After all, everyone in Linchester hated Patrick. With the help of a certain naturalist, Dr. Greenleaf begins to think about murder.

A mystery surrounds three women and three men who have recently disappeared completely from their lives. There are other women too, unknown to one another, who have had relationships with a dark-haired man who is no longer around.

In the peaceful garden of a London house, a manhole cover has just been raised. Inside the cellar lie three bodies. Two men and a woman. None carry identification. The men have been there for twelve years; the woman for only two. For Inspector Wexford, this is a case worth coming out of retirement for. Soon he is trying to establish who the victims in the vault are - and most importantly who put them there. But a shocking development in his private life means that his search for the truth is about to become a lot more complicated ...

An omnibus edition of three of Ruth Rendell's Wexford mysteries. They feature a predictable, ordinary woman who meets a passionate death, a reinvestigation of a hanging 15 years earlier, and the puzzling death of a cocky little lorry-driver.

The Copper Peacock: a hideous bookmark given to Bernard, a writer, by his attractive cleaning lady, Judy. She had brought order to a hitherto chaotic life, but now the bookmark destroys all this, shattering his razor sharp sensibilities.

Guy still believed that Leonora loved him, as she had when she was a young girl, when he led a street gang around London's Notting Hill Gate, a world away from her family home in a mews house in Holland Park. Leonora's mother in particular didn't care for her boyfriend, especially when she found out about the shoplifting and drugs. Guy's obsession with Leonora increased as the years passed, and as they grew apart. He always believed she would come back to him. But even when Leonora told him it could not be like that, that life was not like a fairy tale, he could not, would not, accept the truth. And a murderous madness began to take hold of him.