A Ruth Rendell Mystery Two years ago he had been a promising young novelist. Now he survived you could hardly call it living - in a near derelict cottage with only an unhooked telephone and his own obsessive thoughts for company. Two years of loving Drusilla - the bored, rich, unstable girl with everything she needed, and a husband she wanted dead. The affair was over. But the long slide into deception and violence had just begun. . . 'A beautiful double-take plot. And characters seen with compassion. Her best yet!' H. R. F. KEATING THE TIMES