Ruth Rendell

13 Steps Down Ruth Rendell

Mix Cellini is superstitious about the number 13. In musty St. Blaise House, there are thirteen steps down to the landing below his rooms, which he keeps spick and span. His elderly landlady, Gwendolen Chawcer, was born in St. Blaise House, and lives her life through her library, so she cannot see the decay and neglect around her. The Notting Hill neighborhood has changed radically over the last fifty years, and 10 Rillington Place, where the notorious John Christie committed a series of murders, has been torn down. Mix is obsessed with the life of Christie; both landlady and lodger inhabit weird worlds of their own. But when reality intrudes into Mix's life, a long pent-up violence explodes.