The Girl Next Door - Tapa dura

"If you're unfamiliar with Ruth Rendell, if you've somehow managed to miss her sixty or so books ... then, congratulations: Your reading life is about to get infinitely richer."--Jonathan Shapiro "Los Angeles Times "

"No one surpasses Ruth Rendell when it comes to stories of obsession, istability, and malignant coincidence."--Stephen King

"Unequivocally the most brilliant mystery writer of our time.--Patricia Cornwell

"Ruth Rendell is my dream writer. Her prose style...has the disquieting intimacy of an alien touch in the dark."--Marilyn Stasio "The New York Times Book Review "

"'Subtle' is an inadequate word for Ruth Rendell. So are 'crafty, ' 'cunning, ' 'clever' and 'sly.'"--Marilyn Stasio "New York Times Book Review "

"A novel by Ruth Rendell is like none other..... The results are seldom what we expect them to be, and that is part of this author's special genius."--Robert Croan "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "

"Rendell has for years, along with her friend P.D. James, been bringing new sophistication and psychological depth to the traditional English mystery."--Washington Post

"It's a pleasure to report that Ruth Rendell, at the age of 82 and after publishing more than 60 books, has given us yet another gem. A pleasure but not a surprise, since Rendell has for years, along with her friend P.D. James, been bringing new sophistication and psychological depth to the traditional English mystery."--Washington Post

"The characters jump off the page. The page-to-page surprises are so clever that the reader is left agape at each twist and turn. The pieces fit together brilliantly.--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Refined, probing, and intelligent.... The book is never less than a pleasure."--USA Today

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

In this psychologically explosive story from “one of the most remarkable novelists of her generation” (People), the discovery of bones in a tin box sends shockwaves across a group of long-time friends.

In the waning months of the second World War, a group of children discover an earthen tunnel in their neighborhood outside London. Throughout the summer of 1944—until one father forbids it—the subterranean space becomes their “secret garden,” where the friends play games and tell stories.

Six decades later, beneath a house on the same land, construction workers uncover a tin box containing two skeletal hands, one male and one female. As the discovery makes national news, the friends come together once again, to recall their days in the tunnel for the detective investigating the case. Is the truth buried among these aging friends and their memories?

This impromptu reunion causes long-simmering feelings to bubble to the surface. Alan, stuck in a passionless marriage, begins flirting with Daphne, a glamorous widow. Michael considers contacting his estranged father, who sent Michael to live with an aunt after his mother vanished in 1944. Lewis begins remembering details about his Uncle James, an army private who once accompanied the children into the tunnels, and who later disappeared.

In The Girl Next Door Rendell brilliantly shatters the assumptions about age, showing that the choices people make—and the emotions behind them—remain as potent in late life as they were in youth.