Book description
'Weeks went by when Ismay never thought of it at all. Then something
would bring it back or it would return in a dream. The dream began in
the same way. She and her mother would be climbing the stairs,
following Heather's lead through the bedroom to what was on the other
side, not a bathroom in the dream but a chamber floored and walled in
marble. In the middle of it was a glassy lake. The white thing in the
water floated towards her, its face submerged, and her mother said,
absurdly, "Don't look!"'
The dead man was Ismay's stepfather, Guy. Now, nine years on, she
and her sister, Heather, still live in the same house in Clapham. But
it has been divided into two self-contained flats. Their mother lives
upstairs with her sister, Pamela. And the bathroom, where Guy drowned,
has been demolished. But Death will rear its ugly head once more...
Ismay and Heather get on well. They always have. They never
discussed the changes to the house, still less what had happened that
August day. But as their love lives start to develop, someone is
murdered along the way, and long buried suspicions re-emerge with
potentially tragic results.
Ruth Rendell is the Queen of British crime writing. The author of
over 50 novels, she has won many significant crime fiction awards. Her
first novel, From Doon With Death, appeared in 1964, and since
then her reputation and readership have grown steadily with each new
book.
She has received major awards for her work; three Edgars from the
Mystery Writers of America; the Crime Writers' Gold Dagger Award for
1976's best crime novel, A Demon in My View; the Arts Council
National Book Award for Genre Fiction in 1981 for The Lake of
Darkness; the Crime Writer's Gold Dagger Award for 1986's best
crime book for Live Flesh; in 1987 the Crime Writer's Gold
Dagger Award for A Fatal Inversion and in 1991 the same award
for King Solomon's Carpet, both written under the pseudonym
Barbara Vine; the Sunday Times Literary Award in 1990; and in
1991 the Crime Writer's Cartier Diamond Award for outstanding
contribution to the crime fiction genre.
Her books are translated into 21 languages. In 1996 she was awarded
the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.
