Live Flesh
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| Author | Ruth Rendell |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime, Mystery novel |
| Publisher | Hutchinson |
Publication date | 27 February 1986 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 272 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-09-163680-9 (first edition, hardback) |
| OCLC | 13485433 |
| Preceded by | The New Girlfriend |
| Followed by | Heartstones |
Live Flesh, is a psychological thriller by British author Ruth Rendell, published in 1986. It won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year. It was adapted into a film of the same name by Pedro Almodóvar.
Plot summary
The novel's protagonist is Victor Jenner, sent to prison for shooting and crippling a police officer after an attempted rape. At his trial and afterwards he claims that his actions were unintentional and somehow provoked by his victim. But there may have been other reasons for his attack of which even he was unaware. Ten years later, Jenner is released from prison and has to find himself a new life, with the reduced resources produced by ten years' incarceration and the handicap of a significant criminal record. He discovers that it is all too easy to slip back into the old one.
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