Customer Reviews

13 Steps Down

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Ruth Rendell is the reigning queen of the psychological suspense novel. 13 Steps Down does not disappoint. The main character, Mix Cellini, is a deeply disturbed young man. He idolizes Reggie Christie, a serial killer who was active in London in the mid twentieth century. The more he reads about Reggie, and he is all Mix reads about, the more he admires him and respects the intelligence it took to evade the police for so long. But Reggie is not the only person Mix reveres. He develops an unhealthy interest in a young woman model named Nerissa. In order to get closer to Nerissa, Mix begins to date a young Bosnian immigrant named Danila. Danila is quite alone in the world and it is a long time before she is missed. As Mix stalks Nerissa and fantasizes about their future relationship together the only annoyance in his life is his shrewish landlady Gwendolen Chawcer, a spinster in her eighties. And then come Gwendolen's friends, a couple other old biddies. whose meddling in Gwendolen's affairs when she is ill greatly hamper Mix's attempts to have the life he desires.

There is no piling up of bodies in this book, no horrible scenes of one ghastly murder after another. Instead, Rendell draws you into the lives of Mix, Danila, Nerissa and Gwendolen. She examines their motivating desires, their strengths and weaknesses. These characters become so real that you think about them after the narrative ends. And the amazing thing is that except for the Inspector Wexford novels, Rendell creates a new set of extremely well-defined characters, book after book after book. Highly recommended for fans of psychological suspense.

Ruth Rendell is wonderful. "13 Steps Down" is the quintessential British psychological thriller of perfect pacing, believable characters and situations and crisp, witty dialogue that allows the reader to feel for and against the characters.

Mix Cellini is one of the most enjoyable anti-heros of the decade. It is impossible to view his character other than with humorous disdain as he blunders through the novel. His self absorbed and quizxotic quest of his crush, the supermodel Nerissa Nash, and the disastrous consequences of his quest are abusurdly disturbing. None of Ms. Rendell's characters are particularly likeable and they are all, to varying degrees, self absorbed, shallow prigs wih little concern for their fellow man. Gwendolyn Chawcer, Cellini's landlady and the owner of the monstrous outdated house is a perfect example of a shallow, self absorbed woman who worries about a letter she has sent to a doctor that she had a crush on over fifty years ago asking to see him again. She worries that he will remember that he was driving by the day before he met her and may have saw her and another entering a house of a particularly nasty person for a particularly nasty procedure. She cannot comprehend the fact that this event took place in the 1930s and would not have been in the forefront of anyone's mind but hers.

There is a particularly entertaining backstory about an old serial killer known by Ms. Chawcer and admired by Cellini that helps keep events in order and a supernatural? undertone regarding a ghost that keeps the novel moving crisply along.

The British are pros at this type of thriller, substituting plot, dialogue and characterization instead of gore and over the top action sequences, to make a great novel. Ms. Rendell, P.D. James, Josephine Tey are all worthy successors to Dame Agatha.

Ruth Rendell is, without a doubt, is one of the best (and in my opinion, simply the best) mystery writers alive. It must be hard for this prolific writer to top her previous stellar achievements in the genre and avoid disappointing her readers. 13 Steps Down is not only great, it is also a prefect example of Rendell's writing at her best. I would say it is on the same level as her fantastic earlier A Judgement in Stone and One Across, Two Down.

One of Ruth Rendell's main strengths is her talent at creating fascinating and quirky characters. In 13 Steps Down, she manages to create one of her best casts of utterly unforgettable characters that will stay with you long after you finish reading the book. She is also fantastic at depicting a slow descent into madness experienced by her characters. What might seem as an inoffensive quirk, might gradually develop into a full-blown insanity.

This is not a traditional mystery where a dead body is discovered and the whole book traces the search for the killer. There are murders in the book but you will know who the murderer is from the start and will get to witness the crime being committed. Still, this doesn't make the book any less of a page-turner. Even though it is definitely not a whodunit in the classical sense of the word, 13 Steps Down is harder to put down than most traditional mysteries.

When reading 13 Steps down by Ruth Rendell, I was haunted by the thought that I had read it before. Then I realized that it follows a common theme in her books-- getting into the mind of a killer and studying the motivations inside and out.

There aren't many likable characters in this book. Mix Cellini is a fitness equipment repair guy who has a strong crush on model Nerissa Nash who, along with her father, is about the only character for whom I was able to garner any kind of sympathy at all. Mix has built an elaborate fantasy in his mind that if he can only meet Nerissa and talk to her, she will fall in love with him and fulfill all his dreams. Overlaying this is a fascination he has with a killer who lived near his apartment, Reggie Christie. He reads everything he can get his hands on about Christie and even comes to believe that Christie's ghost is haunting him.

He lives with spinster Gwendolen Chawcer, an elderly woman who lives alone in a fantasy world of her own, reliving her conversations with a young physician who used to come to her home to care for her mother when her mother was dying fifty years before. In Chawcer's mind, she builds this relationship up into a type of love affair and convinces herself that if she were to meet the doctor again, he would recall his lost love for her.

With everyone living in a fantasy world of one type or another, it gets to be a rather tedious read at times, especially since the characters are so unsavory. At the end fo the book, Rendell drops a very weird twist that is extremely jarring due to the unlikelihood of it ever actually happening.

Rendell has written this book before, and has written it much better in the past. I was glad when the book was finally over so I could move on to something else.

I found this book very powerful. Admittedly, I'm not a regular reader of mysteries, so what may strike others as "pro forma" strikes me as unpredictable and exciting.

I loved being in the mind of "Mix," a naive and unlikable man. I particularly enjoyed his thoughts about aged women ("They're all hags," or something to that effect), and the contrast with his views of young women ("Unless you're gorgeous, don't expect me to respect you," or something to that effect). I'm amazed that I wasn't put off by this misogynist, that Rendell kept me turning the pages.

How does she do it? I have no idea. And people say I'm a feminist.

P. S. I also really liked the fortune-teller, Shoshana. I had no idea, until I read this book, that fortune-tellers also consult OTHER fortune-tellers -- and the name of the other fortune-teller (not her real name of course) is rather wonderful: Hecate.

Those who enjoy the crime fiction genre will likely appreciate this story about creepy, loser, lodger Michael "Mix" Cellini, his highbrow eighty-something-year-old landlady, their friends, acquaintances and the objects of their affections. Award winning mystery writer Rendell can obviously tell a story, but especially for an inexperienced mystery reader, it was hard to get past a few troublesome details, the main one being the minimization of the unmistakably powerful stench of a cadaver. Additionally, having anticipated a complicated, unpredictable denouement, I was surprised at its simplicity. Lovers of mystery, read away, others might prefer something like The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks.

This novel just didn't do it for me. It started off promisingly as the suspense builds. However, the payoff is not that good and the resolution kind of unsatisfying. Rendell's recent works do not match her earlier ones.

Spoiler Alert
As a mystery, this novel is seriously flawed (other reviewers have pointed to the problems) and the ending is contrived and very disappointing, but as a study of obsession and self-delusion, it is powerfully worth reading.

Thirty-year old Mix Cellini is obsessed with 1940s/1950s British serial killer John "Reggie" Christie and with supermodel Nerissa Nash, whom he has met (by chance) once. His self-delusion manifests itself in the ability to justify his every action as something forced on him by someone else and to believe that everything Nerissa does or says points to their love and eventual marriage.

Cellini's 80-year old landlady Gwendolen Chawcer is obsessed by her love for the doctor who attended her dying mother decades before. She deceived herself then that his professional politeness was reciprocation for her own love, and she deceives herself in the present when she reads his wife's obituary, that he and she will be reunited and married.

Nerissa is obsessed by her love for the boy next door. She, alone, eventually gets what she thinks she wants but realizes that the prize is worthless.

I've not read much by Ruth Rendell, and other, better-read reviewers suggest that it's not one of her more successful novels. I found it psychologically interesting enough that I'll get around to reading some more of her work.

. . . .which was also written by the same author under a different name : Barbara Vine. I read that first and it was far superior. I agree with previous reviewers that this book was dull and had a ridiculous twist at the end. On the whole, very disappointing and I finished reading it for the sake of finishing it - not enjoyable or intriguing as it should have been.

Ruth Rendell is one of my favorite authors. She doesn't disappoint here but this is not one of her very best books. Human behavior and all its quirks are always at the forefront of her stories. This is what draws us in and keeps us turning the pages. The movie, Live Flesh, directed by Pedro Almodovar was a terrific movie based on her novel. It is well worth seeing! What a combination for writer and director!