Book description
Once when Benet was about fourteen she and her mother had been alone
in a train carriage - and Mopsa had tried to stab her with a carving
knife.
It was some time since Benet had seen her psychologically disturbed
mother. So when Mopsa arrived at the airport looking drab and
colourless in a dowdy grey suit, Benet tried not to hate her.
But then the tragic death of a child begins a chain of deception,
kidnap and murder in which three women are pushed to their
psychological limit.
Winner of the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger in 1984 and
shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards. Adapted
into a hit thriller film starring Lauren Bacall.
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.
