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Scribner
November 2015
On Sale: October 27, 2015
Featuring: Carl Martin; Dermot McKinnon
ISBN: 1501119427
EAN: 9781501119422
Kindle: B00UDCHXHS
Hardcover / e-Book
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A spectacularly compelling story of blackmail, murders both accidental and opportunistic, and of one lifeβs fateful unraveling from Ruth Rendellββone of the most remarkable novelists of her generationβ (People)βwriting 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 fatherβs bizarre collection of homeopathic βcuresβ 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 Carlβs space. Ingeniously weaving together two storylines that finally merge in one shocking turn, Ruth Rendell describes one manβs spiral into darknessβand murderβas he falls victim to a diabolical foe he cannot escape.
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