Book description
The Portobello area of West London has a rich personality - vibrant,
brilliant in colour, noisy, with graffiti that approach art, bizarre
and splendid. An indefinable edge to it adds a spice of danger. There
is nothing safe about Portobello...
Eugene Wren inherited an art gallery from his father near an arcade
that now sells cashmere, handmade soaps and children's clothes. But he
decided to move to a more upmarket site in Kensington Church Street.
Eugene is fifty, with prematurely white hair. He is, perhaps, too
secretive for his own good. He also has an addictive personality. But
he has cut back radically on his alcohol consumption and has given up
cigarettes. Which is just as well, considering he is going out with a
doctor. For all his good intentions, though, there is something he
doesn't want her to know about...
Eugene's secret links the lives of a number of very different people
- each with their own obsessions, problems, dreams and despairs. And
through it all the hectic life of Portobello bustles on...
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.
