The Face of Trespass
A stand-alone novel published by Hutchinson in 1974
It’s a long time since I came across a really convincing femme fatale in a thriller, but Ruth Rendell has created one in this her 13th novel. How she sets up her lover to murder her husband is the core of the story, set mainly in Epping Forest and France.
Two years ago, he had been a promising young novelist. Now he survived—you could hardly call it living—in a near derelict cottage with only an unhooked telephone and his obsessive thoughts for company.
Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass
By its own visage; if I then deny it,
'Tis none of mine.
(The Winter’s Tale, Act 1 Scene 2)
Two years of loving Drusilla - the bored, rich, unstable girl with everything she needed, and a husband she wanted dead. The affair was over. But the long slide into deception and violence had just begun …
Notes
Little Cornwall, the hilly area of north-west Loughton close to Epping Forest, takes its name from Ruth Rendell’s description of the area in The Face of Trespass.
2An Affair in Mind: a 1988 BBC adaptation starring Stephen Dillane and Amanda Donohoe.
Contemporary Reads 3
Patricia Highsmith - Ripley’s Game
Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö - Cop Killer
Stephen King - Carrie
James Baldwin - If Beale Street Could Talk
by John le Carré - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Iris Murdoch - The Sacred And Profane Love Machine