Live Flesh
A stand-alone novel published by Hutchinson in 1986-02-27
This is the other Ruth Rendell, not the queen of crime she has been dubbed but the Hecate of twisted minds and sick dreams, here in the eeriest recesses of her realm.
After ten years in prison for shooting—and permanently crippling—a young policeman, Victor Jenner is released to a strange new world and told to make a new life for himself.
It’s hard to fill in the days, but at least there’s one blessing — he was never convicted for all those rapes he committed.
Then Victor meets David, the policeman he shot, and David’s beautiful girlfriend, Clare. And suddenly Victor’s new life is starting to look an awful lot like the old one.
Notes
Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger.
Rewriting Rendell: Carne trémula, a 1997 film adaptation, written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar.
The best of Ruth Rendell: 10 to read, watch and listen to.
Footnotes
The Observer, 2 March 1986. ↩︎