Thirteen Steps Down

By: Ruth Rendell

Narrated by: Ric Jerrom

Mix Cellini (which he pronounces with an S rather than a C) is superstitious about the number 13 and has always felt dogged by ill-luck. In the house where he lives, there are 13 steps down to the landing below his rooms. His landlady lives her life almost exclusively through her library, blind to the neglect and decay around her. However, Mix is obsessed with the life of the notorious John Christie, who lived in the same Notting Hill neighbourhood at 10 Rillington Place. He is also infatuated with a beautiful woman who lives near-by, a model who wouldn’t look twice at him. Both landlady and lodger are caught up in their own psychologically twisted parallel worlds. But when reality intrudes into Mix's life, a long pent-up violence explodes.

©2004 Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

As always, Rendell writes a very engaging yarn!

Her stories are addictive, with very human tho creepy characters. Loved the old ladies in this one and their dialogue.
Fantastic reader too!
If you like a bit of suspense with sharply drawn characters and unexpected twists you will enjoy this. M

One of Rendell’s best

I have read most of Ruth Rendell’s books over the years and am now listening to them. I’ve always thought her stand-alone novels were better than the Wexford books and this is one of the best.

This book is about an elderly lady and her “lodger” who both lead interior lives greatly at odds with reality. She pines for the love that got away; he longs for romance with a famous model and contrives to meet her.

It’s a Rendell book so of course there are murders, oddballs, creepy settings, all vividly brought to life and enhanced by the excellent narration of Ric Jerrom. There are no mind-blowing twists or contrived occurrences; everything proceeds about the way you’d expect it to in real life. The fun is in the way the events are interpreted through the faulty prisms of the characters’ minds.

One of Rendell's very best

I read this book many years ago. I have always been fascinated by the secrets that grand old houses keep, and the setting and characters are irresistible. The narrator really breathes life into the pitch dark comedy that is Ruth Rendell's greatest skill as a writer

wow, this was a disappointment

This is the first Ruth Rendell novels I have "read", but I love the several Barbara Vine novels that I have listened to through Audible........I find it hard to believe that they're written by the same person. This book is repetitive: the reader is subjected to repeated, almost identical descriptions of how badly kept the house is and the extent of the disrepair. This book is static: the characters don't change, they keep saying and doing the same things over and over again, and the plot moves at a snail's pace. The book is derivative: there are no surprises in what happens, there's no undiscovered thoughts or motivations, and the only "surprise" about the ghost is pretty unbelievable and kind of fizzles in the end.

Added to that is the lackluster narration, which is occasionally cliched and occasionally undifferentiated (between characters and times).

A disappointment for this Barbara VIne fan.