The Killing Doll

No one would have described Manningtree Grove as fashionable. Few would have found it especially interesting. But it was not an unpleasant place to live: the old railway line lay in a valley, and the gardens looked onto it. It was the kind of place where nothing ever happened. Yet it was here that Peter Yearman first sold his soul to the devil....

©1984 Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Suspenseful, unexpected, brilliant

Rendell's gift for transporting us into the minds of both the very peculiar and the unimaginative is never more fascinating than in this novel, indubitably one of her best. A teenage boy struggles with insecurity and dabbles in Satanism and ceremonial magic. Another boy is increasingly submerged in mental illness and violent fury. A young girl who sees herself as hideous in appearance is truly hideous in spirit. A young woman's loving heart brings her long-deserved happiness. An older man discovers the hidden artistry which his decades of solitude have developed. The flaws in them all converge in a final catastrophic act in which it is difficult to distinguish predator from prey. Rendell packs every chapter with events which at first seem surprising and afterward inevitable. She is as brilliant a psychologist as she is a writer, and has a unique capacity to unwind both plot and character with dizzying speed and not one unnecessary or misplaced word. Elizabeth II made Rendell a Baroness in recognition of her literary achievement, and this novel proves Her Majesty right.

sutch good fantasy story

the twist and turning and horror sometimes but very hard to stop listening and you can get maredreams