Thirteen Steps Down

infobox Book |
name = Thirteen Steps Down
title_orig =
translator =


author = Ruth Rendell
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre = Crime, Mystery novel
publisher = Hutchinson
release_date = 2004
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 314 pp
isbn = ISBN 0091799759
preceded_by = "The Rottweiler"
followed_by = "End in Tears"

Thirteen Steps Down is a 2004 novel by British crime writer Ruth Rendell. Its publication in the UK marked Rendell's 40th anniversary of being published, and all hardcover copies of the book had a special promotional notice on the cover celebrating this.

Plot summary

The novel's main protagonist is Mix Cellini (which he rigidly pronounces with an "s"), a socially-maladjusted young man who works for a company that fixes exercise equipment. Mix lives in an upstairs apartment in a decaying house in Notting Hill, rented out to him by the elderly Gwendoline Chawcer, who lives alone below and spends all her days reading. Mix is obsessed with two things: serial killer John Christie, and a local model, Nerrissa Nash.

Chawcer is a recluse with no real friends, unable to let go of a vague, yet controlling notion that the doctor who attended to her dying mother so many years ago was in love with her, as she was infatuated with him.

External links

* [http://www.mysteryinkonline.com/2005/09/rendell_ruth_th.html Review of Thirteen Steps Down]
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2102-1284136,00.html The Times review]