Book description
The winter before he was sixteen, amateur magician Pup made a
Faustian pact and sold his soul to the devil. He wasn't quite sure
what he was going to get in exchange.
Pup's older sister, Dolly, is manically obsessed with her birthmark,
believing it is responsible for her status as a social outcast. She
becomes pathologically transfixed by Pup's dabbling in magic,
desperate to believe he has occult powers that can cure her
disfigurement, improve their lives, and kill their stepmother.
As Dolly's obsession grows, a young mentally disturbed Irishman
lurks just around the corner, inseparable from his sharpened set of knives...
In this intense and deeply disturbing novel, Ruth Rendell explores a
haunted world of obsession, delusions and murderous fantasy, with
dazzling virtuosity.
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.
