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13 Steps Down
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9781400098422
ISBN: 1400098424
Label: Crown
Manufacturer: Crown
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: September 27, 2005
Publisher: Crown
Release Date: September 27, 2005
Studio: Crown
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Editorial Review:
Mix Cellini is obsessed. And not just with the supermodel he’s been stalking. He’s also endlessly fascinated by the life of Reggie Christie, the infamous serial killer hanged fifty years ago. So when things get difficult—his snoopy landlady and her friends watch him with growing suspicion and the object of his desire ignores him—Mix turns to his hero, Reggie Christie, for inspiration. And Reggie was a man for whom murder began as a practical solution and became a matter of appetite.In Thirteen Steps Down, Ruth Rendell masterfully interweaves the multiple narratives that connect the angry young man who longs for recognition, the young model he dreams about, and his elderly spinster landlady, who has found a reason to hope that romance may still find a way into her life. Chilling, charming, and utterly compelling, Thirteen Steps Down winds its way to a conclusion that defies the reader’s expectations in every way. This is psychological suspense at its very best.
Ruth Rendell has won many awards, including the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for 1976’s best crime novel with A Demon in My View; a second Edgar in 1984 from the Mystery Writers of America for the best short story, The New Girl Friend; a Gold Dagger award for Live Flesh in 1986. She was also the winner of the 1990 Sunday Times Literary Award, as well as the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A definite departure for Rendell
If you're expecting a comfortable, Wexford-like read, this isn't it! I'm a huge fan of Rendell's Inspector Wexford series. This book, not so much. I have enjoyed a few of her other forays into Wexford-free mystery, but this one left me pretty cold. Maybe it's because so little of Wexford's character is revealed in each novel, so that each revelation feels like a major concession and you really become sympathetic with the character, but Mix and the other characters in this book seem peculiarly wooden ... Read More
Rating: - It just did not grab me.
One cannot always explain why things are. Why do I not like vanila ice cream while someone else loves it? This book just wasn't that enjoyable.
Rating:  - Suspenseful but too fussy...would have made a better short story
In a nutshell...a very readable story with lots of "Oh they're bound to catch him now" moments; so good as far as suspense goes but a let down at the end in that it just well, ended...nothing remarkable at all.
I felt the book was too padded out with stuff that was really irrelevant, like the doctor that Gwen writes to (after reading his wife's obituary) in the hope of resuming their romance from half a century ago. Or the clairvoyant that everyone seems to visit and whilst she does tend ... Read More
Rating:  - Great Plotting
Two unpleasant, self-deluded people---a curmudgeonly old lady and a young pervert---share a creepy rundown mansion as their lives start to cave in. Great psychological portraits, perfect handling of multiple plot strands . . . I really loved this mystery. My favorite type of mystery too: suspenseful and psychological, modern but not gruesome.
Rating: - Love Rendell/Vine but too many coincidences in this one
Ruth Rendall is my favorite author of psychological thrillers but THIRTEEN STEPS DOWN has too many coincidences to be credible and needs some editing. The psychopathic killer is obsessed with a famous model who by *coincidence* turns out to be the great niece of his landlady's friend and actually turns up at the villain's house. A refugee who bears a striking resemblance to a long dead serial killer (who lived locally) is *conveniently* hiding out in the attic of the house where our psychopath is in ... Read More
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