As an excuse to meet at the local pub and air their grievances, the hired help on Hexam Place form the St Zita Society. When Dex is invited to attend one of their meetings, the others members find him strange. These first impressions are compounded when they discover he has recently been released from a hospital for the criminally insane, and that he interprets the text messages from his mobile phone provider as instructions for ridding the world of evil spirits. Ruth Rendell's new psychological thriller is a gripping examination of society, where darkness is never far away.

Ruth Rendell is the Queen of British crime writing. The author of over 50 novels, she has won many significant crime fiction awards. Her first novel, From Doon With Death, appeared in 1964, and since then her reputation and readership have grown steadily with each new book. She has received major awards for her work; three Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America; the Crime Writers' Gold Dagger Award for 1976's best crime novel, A Demon in My View; the Arts Council National Book Award for Genre Fiction in 1981 for The Lake of Darkness; the Crime Writer's Gold Dagger Award for 1986's best crime book for Live Flesh; in 1987 the Crime Writer's Gold Dagger Award for A Fatal Inversion and in 1991 the same award for King Solomon's Carpet, both written under the pseudonym Barbara Vine; the Sunday Times Literary Award in 1990; and in 1991 the Crime Writer's Cartier Diamond Award for outstanding contribution to the crime fiction genre. Her books are translated into 21 languages. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.

"Rendell's prose style is unadorned, but she uses it to create memorable characters and nail-biting suspense." Sunday Times 20120708 "Rendell is excellent on the delicate snobbery of the uneasy territory in between the social classes." Independent "A superbly executed ensemble piece set in an exclusive street in Pimlico, home to the rich and privileged and those who supply their daily wants and needs ... Psychodramas abound and, as always, Rendell excels at detailing misunderstandings, paranoia, subtle power-shifts and the laws of unintended consequences ... a fascinating murder mystery." Guardian "There are quite a few Ruth Rendells: the doyenne of the traditional English detective novel; the queen of the psychological thriller; the celebrated author of the literary thriller; and her most recent incarnation, as a writer of blackly comic fairy tales set in London." Mail on Sunday "Rendell is brilliant at showing how proximity and distance can co-exist; how people's lives can intersect in a practical sense without ever really touching in any meaningful way ... Dramatic tension is building right from the start of this powerful novel ... Many authors have written successfully about events spiralling out of control but Rendell's area of expertise is the deluded patterns human beings try to impose on the chaos of life and their true selves which are far more frightening than unchecked mayhem." Sunday Express 20120701

Ruth Rendell is the Queen of British crime writing. The author of over 50 novels, she has won many significant crime fiction awards. Her first novel, From Doon With Death, appeared in 1964, and since then her reputation and readership have grown steadily with each new book. She has received major awards for her work; three Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America; the Crime Writers' Gold Dagger Award for 1976's best crime novel, A Demon in My View; the Arts Council National Book Award for Genre Fiction in 1981 for The Lake of Darkness; the Crime Writer's Gold Dagger Award for 1986's best crime book for Live Flesh; in 1987 the Crime Writer's Gold Dagger Award for A Fatal Inversion and in 1991 the same award for King Solomon's Carpet, both written under the pseudonym Barbara Vine; the Sunday Times Literary Award in 1990; and in 1991 the Crime Writer's Cartier Diamond Award for outstanding contribution to the crime fiction genre. Her books are translated into 21 languages. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.