Thirteen Steps Down: A Novel

Mix Cellini is obsessed. And not just with the supermodel he’s been stalking. He’s also endlessly fascinated by the life of Reggie Christie, the infamous serial killer hanged fifty years ago.

So when things get difficult—his snoopy landlady and her friends watch him with growing suspicion and the object of his desire ignores him—Mix turns to his hero, Reggie Christie, for inspiration. And Reggie was a man for whom murder began as a practical solution and became a matter of appetite.

In Thirteen Steps Down, Ruth Rendell masterfully interweaves the multiple narratives that connect the angry young man who longs for recognition, the young model he dreams about, and his elderly spinster landlady, who has found a reason to hope that romance may still find a way into her life. Chilling, charming, and utterly compelling, Thirteen Steps Down winds its way to a conclusion that defies the reader’s expectations in every way. This is psychological suspense at its very best.

Ruth Rendell is celebrated around the world as a novelist at the peak of her craft. The British Crime Writer’s Association has honored her with four Gold Daggers, a Silver Dagger, and the Diamond Dagger for outstanding contribution to the genre. In the United States she has been acknowledged by a remarkable total of three Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, as well as the organization’s Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement. Over the past forty years Ruth Rendell has created an extraordinary body of literary work. In addition to seven volumes of short stories, one novella, and two works of nonfiction, Dame Rendell has written fifty-two novels, including tales of psychological suspense, the Inspector Wexford mysteries, and eleven novels under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. She lives in London.