Ruth Rendell, who has written conventional English mysteries featuring Inspector Wexford, also writes harrowing psychological novels. And she is an absolute master at it.
Her latest, “13 Steps Down,” is 340 pages long and not a word is wasted.
She takes the reader immediately into the unbalanced mind of Mix Cellini. He is a youngish man, sane enough to hold a job. But he’s obsessed with Reginald Christie, a real-life serial killer who lived not far from the old house in which Mix rents an apartment in London. Christie was hanged 50 years before.
An even bigger obsession is Mix’s adoration for Nerissa Nash, a gorgeous black model. He believes they will meet and marry.
His landlady, Gwendolen Chawcer, has lived in the house much longer than 50 years, and has a delusion, too. She learns that the young physician who came years ago to visit her dying mother and stayed for tea with Gwendolen is now a widow. She daydreams that he’ll return, lovingly, to her life.
The reader knows that these mental departures from reality will lead to something very bad.
Rendell is so skillful that it’s easy to identify with Mix. Sometimes, fearing that Mix’s mind will become further unbalanced or that somebody he meets will harm him, the reader just has to put the book down. It would be less painful not to know what kind of horrible collision course Mix, Gwendolen and Nerissa are on.
But Rendell is too strong a writer and makes it impossible not to read every word until the end.
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