Thirteen Steps Down

Ruth Rendell

ISBN 10: 038566074X / ISBN 13: 9780385660747

Published by Doubleday Canada / Random House Canada Toronto, 2004

About this Item

First Canadian edition thus (preceded by the 2004 U.K. hardcover release) first printing of a fine hardcover in a fine dustjacket. A stand-alone by this author featuring loner Max Cellini, superstitious about the number 13, and when reality intrudes into his life a long pent-up violence explodes.

Seller Inventory # 2014

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Thirteen Steps Down
• Publisher: Doubleday Canada / Random House Canada Toronto
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 038566074X
• ISBN 13: 9780385660747
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

From the multi-award-winning author of The Babes in the Wood and The Rottweiler, a chilling new novel about obsession, superstition, and violence, set in Rendell’s darkly atmospheric London.

Mix Cellini (which he pronounces with an ‘S’ rather than a ‘C’) is superstitious about the number 13. In musty old St. Blaise House, where he is the lodger, there are thirteen steps down to the landing
below his rooms, which he keeps spick and span. His elderly landlady, Gwendolen Chawcer, was born in St. Blaise House, and lives her life almost exclusively through her library of books, so cannot see the decay and neglect around her.

The Notting Hill neighbourhood has changed radically over the last fifty years, and 10 Rillington Place, where the notorious John Christie committed a series of foul murders, has been torn down.

Mix is obsessed with the life of Christie and his small library is composed entirely of books on the subject. He has also developed a passion for a beautiful model who lives nearby — a woman who would not look at him twice.

Both landlady and lodger inhabit weird worlds of their own. But when reality intrudes into Mix’s life, a long pent-up violence explodes.

About the Author

Ruth Rendell has won many awards, including the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for 1976’s best crime novel with A Demon in My View; a second Edgar in 1984 from the Mystery Writers of America for the best short story, The New Girl Friend; a Gold Dagger award for Live Flesh in 1986. She was also the winner of the 1990 Sunday Times Literary Award, as well as the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.