The Keys To The Street

Description

London's wealthiest, poorest, kindest and most dangerous citizens all cross paths in Regent's Park. All it takes to bring them together is a series of brutally gruesome murders. A thrilling exploration of London's criminal underbelly, from the world's best mystery writer and author of bestselling psychological thrillers including Thirteen Steps Down. Mary Jago donates her bone marrow to save the life of a complete stranger; a generous act of kindness that culminates in a violent break-up with her brutish boyfriend. Moving to the affluent edge of London's famous Regent's Park, Mary believed she had finally escaped the threat of violence. She never thought that one simple act of kindness could put her own life in mortal danger. When the bodies of local homeless people are found impaled on the park's railings, violently murdered by a deranged serial killer, Mary could not have suspected a connection to herself. But on the dark and mysterious streets of Rendell's labyrinthine London, everyone is trapped in her tightly woven web of murder and mystery.

Ruth Rendell was an exceptional crime writer, and will be remembered as a legend in her own lifetime. Her groundbreaking debut novel, From Doon With Death, was first published in 1964 and introduced the reader to her enduring and popular detective, Inspector Reginald Wexford, who went on to feature in twenty-four of her subsequent novels. With worldwide sales of approximately 20 million copies, Rendell was a regular Sunday Times bestseller. Her sixty bestselling novels include police procedurals, some of which have been successfully adapted for TV, stand-alone psychological mysteries, and a third strand of crime novels under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. Very much abreast of her times, the Wexford books in particular often engaged with social or political issues close to her heart. Rendell won numerous awards, including the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for 1976's best crime novel with A Demon in My View, a Gold Dagger award for Live Flesh in 1986, and the Sunday Times Literary Award in 1990. In 2013 she was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence in crime writing. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer. Ruth Rendell died in May 2015. Her final novel, Dark Corners, is scheduled for publication in October 2015

The book's plotting is in the grand-master class, its suspense breathless, its denouement shattering * Sunday Times * This time she has surpassed herself -- Antonia Fraser * Sunday Telegraph * There's a manipulative plotter at work in The Keys to the Street, and it's the author * John Mullan, The Guardian * Psychologically acute and extremely disturbing, Ruth Rendell's work is outstanding * The Times * There are quite a few Ruth Rendells: the doyenne of the traditional English detective novel; the queen of the psychological thriller; the celebrated author of the literary thriller * Mail on Sunday *