Customer Reviews

Thirteen steps down

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Mix Cellini is a gym equipment repair man of limited intellect but with a vivid imagination which, at the present time, is focused on the murders of Reginald Christie, the incredibly evil man who killed and THEN raped a large number of women in London in the 1940's. Mix is obsessed with the way Christie killed the women and then buried them, either in graves in his garden or in the wall cavities in his home.

Mixs' other main obsession is a beautiful, black model who is the subject of his fantasies and whom he stalks on every possible occasion.

Mix occupies the attic flat in the huge, mouldering house owned by Gwendolen Chawser, an old, eccentric spinster who lives among dirt and decay, and whose escape from reality is in her collection of fine books which she reads incessantly. Mix meets and brings home with him, a young girl whom he kills after a minor argument. He then thinks of how Christie would dispose of the body and emulates his methods, his mind and imagination fuelling a fast track to a nervous breakdown. He decides to get rid of Gwendolen in the same way after she becomes suspicious of his connection with the young girl who is now listed as a missing person. It is his plan to kill Gwendolen which proves to be his downfall.

I thoroughly enjoyed this latest Ruth Rendell novel and would recommend it to all of her fans.

Mix Chellini is the star of this latest novel by Ruth Rendell. An exercise equipment repairman whose IQ rivals his shoe size, Mix has two great passions in his life--an obsession with past serial killer, Reggie Christie, and an overwhelming fascination with beautiful model Nerissa Nash. Mix has all of the books ever written about Christie and takes great pleasure in exploring the area in which the serial killer lived. He haunts the places Nerissa frequents and spins fantasies about her continually.

Mix rents rooms on the top floor of an ancient home owned by Gwendolyn Chawser and has spent a great deal of his money, making the rooms liveable. To characterize Miss Chawser as eccentric is a gross understatement, and she and Mix are like oil and water. Each lives in a bizarre world of his/her own creation.

As is often the case with Ms Rendell's non-Inspector Wexford books, Thirteen Steps Down is not a mystery. Instead, it is a psychological thriller of the highest order, and the intricately woven plot and wonderful, in-depth character studies make this one of Rendell's finest efforts.

The rate at which Ruth Rendell turns out material is a mystery in and of itself. Maybe she never bothers to sleep. Maybe she has a squad of highly creative, shrewd and literate elves in the cellar. Maybe she types with one hand and eats with the other. Whatever the explanation, neither time nor output seems to dilute her prowess or diminish her invention. No wonder she needs a second name (it is Barbara Vine).

Thirteen Steps Down, like its predecessor The Rottweiler, has a sizeable and varied cast of characters who intersect at a primary location: in this case, the dilapidated Victorian mansion of aging and testy Gwendolyn Chawcer. She rents out a room to Mix, a sociopath whose obsessions are divided between serial killer Reg Christie and a rather vacuous, naive supermodel. What landlady and tenet have in common, cobwebs and crumbling roof aside, is mutual contempt, a skewed impression of

reality and a self-satisfied conviction to the contrary. As Mix researches his hero and pursues means of winning the lovely and celebrated hand of Nerissa Nash, Gwendolyn becomes fixated on

establishing contact with a man last seen some fifty years before, whom she regards as having been her suitor. Neither has the slightest inkling that perception may well fail to align with fact, and produce catastrophe when acted on.

Events weave the past in with the present as characters criss-cross each others' paths, sometimes coming face to face, sometimes missing each other - and the dire implications - only by minutes. Gradually, as Gwendolyn subsides into tattered, dust-covered caprice and Mix gives way to homicidal temper, the threads come together to reveal the inevitable whole. The warp and weft of tension is maintained throughout, dotted with coincidence, incision and sardonic humor.

Even secondary characters achieve vitality, sometimes displaying a delightful refusal to yield to type. Cultures and classes teem the streets of Notting Hill: a grandiloquent neighbor with the deportment of a soldier and a penchant for fairy lights; a caftaned psychic whose advice is not quite as off-mark as she thinks; her timid receptionist, rendered gullible by loneliness; Gwendolyn's loyal but barely-tolerated pair of friends, whose family ties are crucial to the plot's weave. All contribute to the novel's ambiance and vigor. Last, but not least, is the house itself: as much of an anachronism as

the woman who inhabits it and, like her, a little sinister, a little ludicrous, entirely unapologetic but yielding, inevitably, to time and neglect.

This is a psychological study, not a mystery. After all, while murder is done, we know who done it; what is unclear is whether it will be noticed at all, or solved it if is. What keeps one turning pages well past bedtime is the presence of characters whose motives and triggers remain believable long after they themselves have crossed the line that divides "quirky" from "delusional". Mix Cellini is a madman, but his hunger for acclaim and inability to empathize is absolutely plausible. Gwendolyn Chawcer is a haughty, condescending snob, but also self-reliant, witty and curiously compelling. Both make us flinch, both engender sympathy. Neither is presented with a shred of sentimentality: they are their own respective (and corollary) disasters -- at once victims and products of social class, upbringing and experience.

The pleasure of Rendell's work is in the telling: adroit, witty, intelligent writing that neither cheats nor condescends. She understands the wheels and cogs that drive nominal mundanity, and through understated exploration reveals that little is ever what it seems: everyone has secrets. Some are poisonous. Some are simply fatuous, delusional or sad. But all are recognizably human, and each, even the well-intentioned ones, have consequences.

Whether signing in as Ruth Rendell or Barbara Vine, she is a master craftsman, and Thirteen Steps Down does not disappoint.

No reason to outline the plot as others have already done it. I love all Ruth Rendell books and this is no exception. This one is a delicious journey inside the mind of a killer, the kind of gruesome story that works in a book, but definitely would not work in a movie for me. I had none of the problems (mostly minor) that the other reviewers below had, but I did have one they didn't mention. There is one unexpected little twist at the end that didn't work for me. Won't say what it is and spoil the ending, but it was just weak and implausible, but it was a very minor point. I still give this 5 stars.

I am offering this 5-star review simply to add to the rave reviews and to counteract those who have been ill-advised enough to rate this fantastic book with only one star, especially the one who was so "angered" by the book. I hope others will do the same so that this book will receive the high rating it so richly deserves!

I enjoyed this book even more than Rendell's "The Rotweiller" which I also liked.

In "Thirteen Steps", this author subtly and observantly buids solid profiles of 2 individuals who clearly fall from reality into fantasy without either of them realizing they have. One becomes a murderer while the other simply misunderstands past events in her life to the point that she makes unrealistic, although non-criminal, plans. There's even a third character who ably stops herself from losing touch this way just as we worry that she could also tumble. All three are motivated by either the desire for reciprocated love or anger at having once been denied it. It is this well considered depiction of how emotions can shape perceptions and actions if given free reign that makes the book delightfully eerie and so much fun to read.

13 Steps Down is at one level a very straight forward story. Mix Cellini moves into a spinster's house where he pursues his two obsessions, mass murder and beauty. Cellini is one of those socially tone-deaf people who rightly give others the creeps.

The story-within-the-story is how this book updates Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

I'm always fascinated by modern novels that use a prior great novel as a model for their story. In this case, Ruth Rendell has given us Great Expectations in modern England.

Miss Havisham is transformed into Miss Gwendolen Chawcer, a spinster living alone in a falling-down-around-her home, while she reads incessantly and pines for the young man of her youth, Dr. Stephen Reeves, who had attended her father during his final illness.

Pip becomes Mix Cellini whose great expectations are to marry a gorgeous model, Nerissa Nash, and enjoy the wealthy celebrity life thereafter. Mix is obsessed by dark visions of a murderer, Reggie Christie, who had lived in the neighborhood, rather than the escaped convict whose life Pip saved.

Estella becomes Nerissa Nash, and Miss Chawcer becomes the go-between who helps connect Mix and Nerissa as Miss Havisham did for Pip and Estella . . . although Miss Chawcer is in no way playing a guardian role for Nerissa.

Why do I start off with so much about Great Expectations? If you don't know and love that novel, you probably won't like 13 Steps Down. Much of this novel's success comes in seeing it in contrast to Great Expectations for the many social commentaries involved and subtle ironies that Ruth Rendell shares for us.

So although there's a crime story and a "mystery" here . . . in a sense there's no mystery. This is an old-time morality novel that points out that we have little morality left.

The beauties in the story come in its many little ironies. Many mysteries make the murderer into some kind of twisted genius, rather than the social misfit with limited skills that many murderers actually are. Ms. Rendell doesn't make that error. In addition, there's more than a little satire here of the mass murderer novel genre in pointing out how hard it is to kill people and not get caught. Ms. Rendell also takes her satirical pot shots at romantic stories as her characters fall in love with people who have no interest in them and would be totally unsuitable anyway.

If you like your humor swift and lethal without leaving much blood behind, 13 Steps Down will thrill you more than any other crime novel in recent years. If you want your stories to be literal and serious, you'll wonder why anyone liked this book.

Ruth Rendell is the most surprising detective story writer you can imagine. In this book - her latest - she does it again. We follow the murderer from beginning to end, particularly his psychological intricacies, contradictions, obscure recesses, etc. And once again killing is never really willful, but more the result of psychological circumstances. The character is superstitious, for one, and highly neurotic, verging onto psychotic, for two. The interest of the book is to discover how small details become disruptive for such a person and grow out of all proportion in no time. The second interest is to explore his approach to love and the same approach on the side of those he chooses as sexual partners, and also the one he elects as his essential target. For him there is no counterpart's will. He wants something, so he has to have it and when the world or life deny that satisfaction he becomes frustrated, agressive or even plain murderous. He cannot accept no as an answer. This leads to a third level, to explore the life a female fashion model who is black though this will be clearly stated only page 225. This is one of the new rules coming from political correctness, and I must say I find it a little bit confusing since the ethnic origin of this model who is loved by a murderer should be explained and used in the exploration of his psyche. It cannot be gratuitous. Furthermore, the novel explores the life and psyche of an old lady, the landlady of our murderer, and here Ruth Rendell reaches a certain level of black humour when she shows the detailed picture of the decadence and dereliction of that old lady. Finally I will say that the book shows bluntly how such a criminal, absolutely unprofilable, can escape the police. The police is not in the know because people seem to satisfy themselves with easy and superficial explanations. It takes some time for the two black « friends » of the old lady to get the courage to go to the police and really start the chase. England sure isn't a police state and the lack of follow-up work on social cases or old people can lead to dramatic situations that might have been prevented.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

I've only read one other Rendell, but this one, like the first I read, kept me interested until the end. What I like about Rendell is that the end of her books doesn't feel like a long and somewhat disappointing finale. This book is not a detective mystery; from the beginning the reader knows who the bad guy is and can imagine what turns his insanity will take, but Rendell keeps the reader interested. The characters are well-drawn and interesting. The dialog, especially the acerbic wit of Gwendolyn, is realistic. Overall, a good read, and because of it I'll seek out further Rendell mysteries.

Ruth Rendell is a master when it comes to depicting deviant characters and her latest novel should please her fans and maybe even win a few more. This one centers on two major characters, both lonely, delusional and hopelessly flawed. Gwendolyn Chawcer is an elderly woman who spends time in her dusty mansion re-reading the classics from her father's library. She is obsessed with a doctor who once courted her and when she reads of his wife's death, she is eager for a chance to rekindle their romance. Mix Cellini, a young man who rents a room in Gwendolyn's house, has two obsessions - his "hero," a serial killer necrophile who once lived in the neighborhood and Nerissa Nash, a famous fashion model whom Cellini seriously intends to marry. Gwendolyn and Mix despise each other and they are hardly aware of the others comings and goings in the house. Of course, murder eventually enters the picture (in a kind of haphazard way) and the novel progresses toward a climax as the characters pursue their demons. Rendell uses very little dialog here. We follow the characters train of thought and entering a character like Mix Cellini's mind can be unnerving. Rendell's matter-of-fact and calm style is often dream-like with traces of black comedy creeping in. Although the novel falters a tad near the end, this author is always satisying and entertaining.