DARK CORNERS is the most recent book from the late, great
Ruth Rendell, the undisputed queen of British crime
fiction, and I'm happy to say it lives up to her stellar
reputation. Being a long-time fan of the author, I will
refer to her in the present tense, as for me her legacy
will remain immortal.
Twenty-three-year-old Carl Martin has inherited a posh house in London,
unfortunately the only
income came from his sole published crime novel, and he
needs the rent money from a tenant. Carl accepts the
offer of the first man who comes to look at the flat,
Dermot McKinnon, which proved to have been a very big
mistake. Carl's late father dabbled in homeopathic
cures of all sorts, and Carl never bothered to throw away what
was left after his father passed. His friend Stacey,
a TV star who has gotten quite chubby, is forever asking
Carl's advice on how she could lose weight in spite of
her bingeing. To get rid of her he gives her 50
capsules of some sort of diet pill he found in his
father's stash. Stacey dies, and Carl realises he had
never taken the time to check if the pills
were safe. But Dermot had, and from that moment on,
Carl's life goes on an unimaginable downward spiral.
As in all of Ms. Rendell's works, DARK CORNERS delves
into the minds of the criminals, or what brings honest
people to commit murder, and it is scary how
circumstances can alter people's behaviour. Or were the
seeds always there? Needless to say, the characters are exceedingly complex,
supremely well-defined, and there are surprises on every
few pages. Ms. Rendell is an astonishing writer: her
prose is elegant yet subdued, smooth and effortless yet
precise and crisp, and her eye for detail is unsurpassed.
Every seemingly innocuous occurrence, every mundane
everyday detail, constitutes a piece of the puzzle that is
the mystery at hand, and nothing should be overlooked.
In DARK CORNERS, there is an underlying theme of money
being the root of all evil, and never has it been more
cleverly exploited. Ruth Rendell's understanding of the
psychological aspects of the criminal mind redefined
British crime fiction, and DARK CORNERS is as gripping
and quietly chilling as anything else Ms. Rendell has
ever written, and the ending left me completely stunned.
Do not miss it!
A spectacularly compelling story of blackmail, murders both
accidental and opportunistic, and of one life’s fateful
unraveling from Ruth Rendell—“one of the most remarkable
novelists of her generation” (People)—writing at her most
acute and mesmerizing.
When his father dies, Carl Martin inherits a house in an
increasingly rich and trendy London neighborhood. Carl needs
cash, however, so he rents the upstairs room and kitchen to
the first person he interviews, Dermot McKinnon. That was
colossal mistake number one. Mistake number two was keeping
his father’s bizarre collection of homeopathic “cures” that
he found in the medicine cabinet, including a stash of
controversial diet pills. Mistake number three was selling
fifty of those diet pills to a friend, who is then found dead.
Dermot seizes a nefarious opportunity and begins to
blackmail Carl, refusing to pay rent, and creepily invading
Carl’s space. Ingeniously weaving together two storylines
that finally merge in one shocking turn, Ruth Rendell
describes one man’s spiral into darkness—and murder—as he
falls victim to a diabolical foe he cannot escape.
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