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The Girl Next Door: A Novel
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Published:
Scribner 2014
Status:
Checked Out
Description
INCLUDES AN EXCERPT OF RENDELL'S FINAL NOVEL, DARK CORNERS

From crime legend Ruth Rendell, a psychologically intriguing novel about an old murder that sends shockwaves across a group of astonishingly carnal and appetiteful elderly friends: "Refined, probing, and intelligent...never less than a pleasure" (USA TODAY).

In the waning months of the second World War, a group of children discover a tunnel in their neighborhood outside London. For that summer of 1944, the subterranean space becomes their "secret garden," where the friends play games, tell their fortunes, and perform for each other.

Six decades later, construction workers make a grisly discovery beneath a house on the same land: a tin box containing two skeletal hands, one male and one female. As the hands make national news, the friends come together once again, to recall their long ago days for a detective. Then the police investigation sputters, and the threads holding their friendship together begin to unravel. Is the truth buried amid the tangled relationships of these aging men and women and their memories? Will it emerge before it's too late?

Stephen King says, "no one surpasses Ruth Rendell when it comes to stories of obsession, instability, and malignant coincidence." In The Girl Next Door—"yet another gem" (The Washington Post)—Rendell brilliantly shows that the choices people make, and the emotions behind them, remain as potent in late life as they were in youth. "Rendell's wit, always mordant, has never been sharper than when she skewers patronizing assumptions about the elderly" (Chicago Tribune).
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
10/07/2014
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781476784335
ASIN:
B00IWTWH1G
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Ruth Rendell. (2014). The Girl Next Door: A Novel. Scribner.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Ruth Rendell. 2014. The Girl Next Door: A Novel. Scribner.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Ruth Rendell, The Girl Next Door: A Novel. Scribner, 2014.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Ruth Rendell. The Girl Next Door: A Novel. Scribner, 2014.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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      • bioText: Ruth Rendell (1930–2015) won three Edgar Awards, the highest accolade from Mystery Writers of America, as well as four Gold Daggers and a Diamond Dagger for outstanding contribution to the genre from England's prestigious Crime Writ­ers' Association. Her remarkable career spanned a half century, with more than sixty books published. A member of the House of Lords, she was one of the great literary figures of our time.
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fullDescription
INCLUDES AN EXCERPT OF RENDELL'S FINAL NOVEL, DARK CORNERS

From crime legend Ruth Rendell, a psychologically intriguing novel about an old murder that sends shockwaves across a group of astonishingly carnal and appetiteful elderly friends: "Refined, probing, and intelligent...never less than a pleasure" (USA TODAY).

In the waning months of the second World War, a group of children discover a tunnel in their neighborhood outside London. For that summer of 1944, the subterranean space becomes their "secret garden," where the friends play games, tell their fortunes, and perform for each other.

Six decades later, construction workers make a grisly discovery beneath a house on the same land: a tin box containing two skeletal hands, one male and one female. As the hands make national news, the friends come together once again, to recall their long ago days for a detective. Then the police investigation sputters, and the threads holding their friendship together begin to unravel. Is the truth buried amid the tangled relationships of these aging men and women and their memories? Will it emerge before it's too late?

Stephen King says, "no one surpasses Ruth Rendell when it comes to stories of obsession, instability, and malignant coincidence." In The Girl Next Door—"yet another gem" (The Washington Post)—Rendell brilliantly shows that the choices people make, and the emotions behind them, remain as potent in late life as they were in youth. "Rendell's wit, always mordant, has never been sharper than when she skewers patronizing assumptions about the elderly" (Chicago Tribune).
reviews
      • premium: True
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      • content:

        August 18, 2014
        In this assured novel of psychological suspense from Diamond Dagger Award–winner Rendell (The St. Zita Society), a gruesome discovery jolts a group of friends and acquaintances who grew up outside London during WWII. Two people’s hands—severed and interred inside a cookie tin—are unearthed at a former construction site where they once hid and schemed. At the center of the now aged clique is the “girl next door,” Daphne Jones, ever envied and admired. John “Woody” Winwood, a man whose wife went missing with her lover during the turmoil of the blitzkrieg, is a malevolent presence, past and present, in the story. In contemporary Britain, Winwood’s son, Michael, must face his nonagenerian father, who abandoned him decades before and then married into money, inheriting a fortune from his subsequent wives. Rendell keeps the plot and the home fires burning, and the most memorable characters, Daphne and Woody, cast sufficient light to brighten their somewhat dull companions. Agent: Peter Matson, Sterling Lord Literistic.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        September 1, 2014

        Rendell's latest psychological suspense novel centers on a group of children who discover an underground tunnel and use it as their private hideaway. Sixty years later, when construction workers discover two skeletal hands in that same tunnel, the police investigation reunites the childhood friends. Each one brings plenty of personal baggage: it isn't long before two former lovers embark on an illicit affair, and another comes to believe that one of the hands belonged to a long-missing relative. Yet another questions his decision to cut his uncaring father out of his life and considers reestablishing communication. Past decisions cast their shadow over the present as the characters question both themselves and the choices they made long ago. VERDICT The three-time Edgar Award-winning author (The Water's Lovely; Portobello) creates another riveting story with her sharp characterization and keen sense of irony that will keep readers engaged from start to finish. Fans of mystery and psychological suspense, along with Rendell's loyal following, will love this complex story. [See Prepub Alert, 5/12/14.]--Linda Oliver, Colorado Springs

        Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        Starred review from September 1, 2014
        In her lengthy career (she's published more than 70 books), multiple-award-winning author Rendell has written about teenagers, the lonely, the lovelorn, the disturbed, the violated, and the just plain evil. This time she turns her keen eye on the elderly: how they manage the present, look toward the future, and, especially, remember the past. The story begins in the 1940s. After murdering his wife and her lover, a man buries their two joined hands in a tin box, deep in tunnels where his son and a group of other young children gather. There it stays for 60 years until a construction company unearths it. Such an old crime invites little interest from police until a link is discovered to an elderly man who lives in the area. As one of the children who played in the tunnels, the man volunteers to bring together the others, now mostly in their seventies, to see if anyone can help authorities. New information isn't forthcoming, but the reunion sparks old rivalries, loves, and disappointments that change the lives of everyone in the group. Using her customary spare yet decorous style and measured pace, Rendell, now in her 80s, beautifully and carefully individualizes each member of her ensemble cast, at the same time creating not a grim reminder of mortality but a picture of moribund lives renewed. A special book by a special writer. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Grand-master Rendell at her best is something to be savored by crime-fiction devotees of all ages, and this one, with the promised promotional effort, will find a large and eager audience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

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INCLUDES AN EXCERPT OF RENDELL'S FINAL NOVEL, DARK CORNERS

From crime legend Ruth Rendell, a psychologically intriguing novel about an old murder that sends shockwaves across a group of astonishingly carnal and appetiteful elderly friends: "Refined, probing, and intelligent...never less than a pleasure" (USA TODAY).

In the waning months of the second World War, a group of children discover a tunnel in their neighborhood outside London. For that summer of 1944, the subterranean space becomes their "secret garden," where the friends play games, tell their fortunes, and perform for each other.

Six decades later, construction workers make a grisly discovery beneath a house on the same land: a tin box containing two skeletal hands, one male and one female. As the hands make national news, the friends come together once again, to recall their long ago days for a detective. Then the police investigation sputters, and the threads holding their...
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