Thirteen Steps Down

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Title Thirteen Steps Down
Author Ruth Rendell
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) Crime, Mystery novel
Publisher Hutchinson
Released 2004
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 314 pp
ISBN ISBN 0091799759
Preceded by The Rottweiler
Followed by End in Tears

Thirteen Steps Down is a 2004 novel by British crime-writer Ruth Rendell. Its publication in the UK marked Rendell's 40th anniversary of being published, and all hardcover copies of the book had a special promotional notice on the cover celebrating this.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The novel's main protagonist is Mix Cellini (which he rigidly pronounces with an "s"), a socially-maladjusted young man who works for a company that fixes exercise equipment. Mix lives in an upstairs apartment in a decaying house in Notting Hill, rented out to him by the elderly Gwendoline Chawcer, who lives alone below and spends all her days reading. Mix is obsessed with two things, 10 Rillington Place - where serial-killer John Christie committed a horrible series of murders - and a local model, Nerrissa Nash, a woman who would likely not look at him twice. Both the main characters are reclusive and live in weird worlds of their own, but it's Mix's dark obsessions that will bring them both down.

[edit] External links