The St. Zita Society: A Novel

INCLUDES AN EXCERPT OF RENDELLS FINAL NOVEL, DARK CORNERS

From three-time Edgar Awardwinning mystery writer Ruth Rendell comes a captivating and expertly plotted tale of residents and servants on one block of a posh London streetand the deadly ways their lives intertwine.

Life for the residents and servants of Hexam Place appears placid and orderly on the outside: drivers take their employers to and from work, dogs are walked, flowers are planted in gardens, and Christmas candles lit uniformly in windows. But beneath this tranquil veneer, the upstairs-downstairs relationships are set to combust.

Henry, the handsome valet to Lord Studley, is sleeping with both the Lords wife and his university-age daughter. Montserrat, the Still familys lazy au pair, assists Mrs. Still in keeping secret her illicit affair with a television actorin exchange for pocket cash. June, the haughty housekeeper to a princess of dubious origin, tries to enlist her fellow house-helpers into a society to address complaints about their employers. Meanwhile, Dex, the disturbed gardener to several families on the block, thinks a voice on his cell phone is giving him godlike instructionscommands that could imperil the lives of all those in Hexam Place.

The St. Zita Society is Ruth Rendell at her brilliant besta deeply observed and suspenseful novel of murder in the quintessentially London world of servants and their masters.