Book description
The eighth book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief
Inspector Wexford.
When the body of a brutally beaten girl is found in a quarry during
a hedonistic hippy festival near Kingsmarkham, Wexford is first on the
scene. The victim's face has been pulped by the back-end of a bottle,
but who, in this atmosphere of peace and love, could be capable of
such violence?
The body is that of local girl turned stripper Dawn Stonor, but it
is the unlikely link between this ill-fated girl and the mysterious
folk-singer Zeno Vedast that piques Wexford's interest.
Through an intricate web of lies and deceit, Wexford uncovers a
history of love and hate that began years earlier. In all his years of
police work, he has never been faced with a crime of such desperate passion...
Ruth Rendell is crime writing at its very best. 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.
