Book description
Arthur Johnson doesn't look like a murderous psychopath; he is a
mild-mannered man who has never known how to talk to women.
Years of loneliness has warped his mind, turning his desire for a
woman's love and respect into a pathological need for carefully
controlled violence. Locked in the cellar of his building is the
perfect willing victim, a woman who can be murdered over and over
again, a woman who waits for Arthur every night...
When a young scholar of psychopathic personalities moves in
downstairs and Arthur's mannequin disappears, where will he turn to
satisfy his urgent craving for violence?
The crime novel that won Rendell the first of her six Gold Dagger
awards, this is a haunting insight into the mind of a pathological criminal.
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.
