The Water''s Lovely
(Ruth Rendell)
Three-time Edgar Award?winner Rendell (13 Steps Down) delivers another gripping tale of psychological suspense, this one centering on murder within a family. In a house on a quiet street in London, a wall has been built to seal off an old, disused bathroom. The family that lives there--two troubled sisters and their emotionally shattered mother--never speak of the wall or what it conceals, but they think about it all the time. The central event takes place long before the book opens: a 13-year-old girl drowns her stepfather in the bathtub. That girl, Heather, is grown up, as is her sister, Ismay. The scene of the crime has been boarded up as a room, and the family lives without acknowledging that the crime has been boarded up as well. Rendell explores this question to creepy-crawly effect, as Heather prepares to marry. Ismay, conflicted over whether she should tell the fiance about her sister''s past, struggles with the question of whether Heather is likely to kill again. Rendell enlivens the tale with subplots involving various romances?ardent and desperate?and a killer who lurks in London''s parks, as well as with pithy comments about class, technology, generational conflict, food and aesthetics.
So many of the characters are motivated and defined by seeking a place to live. From the homeless beggar who keeps returning to his sister''s flat, to the duplex where Ismay and Heather live, many of the plot twists turn on living circumstances. Rendell twists the knife of suspense in a wonderfully excruciating way. There is also a real shock on the last page that is very thought-provoking. Highly,recommended.
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