The BRIDESMAID/TO FEAR A PAINTED - Softcover

Ruth Rendell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099279444 ISBN 13: 9780099279440

Publisher: Leopard Books, 1998

Synopsis

Philip Wardman, an ordinary young man, sports one eccentricity: a neurotic fear of violence and death. Like Ferdinand, he likes to smell the flowers, particularly those in his mother's garden, where stands a statue of the goddess Flora, who over time has come to represent all the female virtues.

Imagine Philip's consternation when, at his sister's wedding, he encounters a living incarnation of the marble Flora: Senta Pelham, an actress happily contemptuous of conventional morality. She comes to him that night.

But Senta has a dark side. Where death frightens Philip, it fascinates her. She proposes a wicked test: to prove his love he needs to kill.

"Vintage Rendell. Shrewd psychological insight, irresistible narrative force...a true member of that small family of great living authors." --Scott Turow

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From the Inside Flap

Philip Wardman had more than just the 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 feminine 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 flagrantly disdains the morals of society and passionately desires the elusive Philip. But what is the real reason for her obsessive devotion? Most important, will their flesh-and-blood relationship require a murder to prove it is the real thing?

About this edition

• Publisher: Leopard Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0099279444
• ISBN 13: 9780099279440
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496