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!