Ruth Rendell: Portobello (USA 2011)

From the Publisher:
Ruth Rendell is widely considered to be crime fiction's reigning queen, with a remarkable career spanning more than forty years. Now, in Portobello, she delivers a captivating and intricate tale that weaves together the troubled lives of several people in the gentrified neighborhood of London's Notting Hill.

Walking to the shops one day, fifty-year-old Eugene Wren discovers an envelope on the street bulging with cash. A man plagued by a shameful addiction -- and his own good intentions -- Wren hatches a plan to find the money's rightful owner. Instead of going to the police, or taking the cash for himself, he prints a notice and posts it around Portobello Road. This ill-conceived act creates a chain of events that links Wren to other Londoners -- people afflicted with their own obsessions and despairs. As these volatile characters come into Wren's life -- and the life of his trusting fiancé -- the consequences will change them all.

Portobello is a wonderfully complex tour de force featuring a dazzling depiction of one of London's most intriguing neighborhoods -- and the dangers beneath its newly posh veneer.

Ruth Rendell: Portobello. Scribner's, ISBN: 9781439150405 (July, 2011), 290 p., $15.00.

Ruth Rendell: Portobello (USA 2010)

From the Publisher:
Ruth Rendell is widely considered to be crime fiction's reigning queen, with a remarkable career spanning more than forty years. Now, in Portobello, she delivers a captivating and intricate tale that weaves together the troubled lives of several people in the gentrified neighborhood of London's Notting Hill.

Walking to the shops one day, fifty-year-old Eugene Wren discovers an envelope on the street bulging with cash. A man plagued by a shameful addiction -- and his own good intentions -- Wren hatches a plan to find the money's rightful owner. Instead of going to the police, or taking the cash for himself, he prints a notice and posts it around Portobello Road. This ill-conceived act creates a chain of events that links Wren to other Londoners -- people afflicted with their own obsessions and despairs. As these volatile characters come into Wren's life -- and the life of his trusting fiancé -- the consequences will change them all.

Portobello is a wonderfully complex tour de force featuring a dazzling depiction of one of London's most intriguing neighborhoods -- and the dangers beneath its newly posh veneer.

Ruth Rendell: Portobello. Scribner's, ISBN: 9781439148518 (September, 2010), 290 p., $26.00.

Ruth Rendell: Portobello (UK 2009)

From the Publisher:
The Portobello area of West London has a rich personality -- vibrant, brilliant in colour, noisy, with graffiti that approach art, bizarre and splendid. An indefinable edge to it adds a spice of danger. There is nothing safe about Portobello...

Eugene Wren inherited an art gallery from his father near an arcade that now sells cashmere, handmade soaps and children's clothes. But he decided to move to a more upmarket site in Kensington Church Street. Eugene is fifty, with prematurely white hair. He is, perhaps, too secretive for his own good. He also has an addictive personality. But he has cut back radically on his alcohol consumption and has given up cigarettes. Which is just as well, considering he is going out with a doctor. For all his good intentions, though, there is something he doesn't want her to know about...

Eugene's secret links the lives of a number of very different people -- each with their obsessions, problems, dreams and despairs. And through it all the hectic life of Portobello bustles on...

Ruth Rendell: Portobello. Arrow, ISBN: 9780099538639 (August, 2009), 376 p., £7.99.

Ruth Rendell: Portobello (UK 2008)

From the Publisher:
The Portobello area of West London has a rich personality -- vibrant, brilliant in colour, noisy, with graffiti that approach art, bizarre and splendid. An indefinable edge to it adds a spice of danger. There is nothing safe about Portobello...

Eugene Wren inherited an art gallery from his father near an arcade that now sells cashmere, handmade soaps and children's clothes. But he decided to move to a more upmarket site in Kensington Church Street. Eugene was fifty, with prematurely white hair. He was, perhaps, too secretive for his own good. He also had an addictive personality. But he had cut back radically on his alcohol consumption and had given up cigarettes. Which was just as well, considering he was going out with a doctor. For all his good intentions, though, there was something he didn't want her to know about...

On a shopping trip one day, Eugene, quite by chance, came across an envelope containing money. He picked it up. For some reason, rather than report the matter to the police, he wrote a note and stuck it up on lamppost near his house: 'Found in Chepstow Villas, a sum of money between eighty and a hundred and sixty pounds. Anyone who has lost such a sum should apply to the phone number below.'

This note would link the lives of a number of very different people -- each with their obsessions, problems and dreams and despairs. And through it all the hectic life of Portobello would bustle on.

Ruth Rendell: Portobello. Hutchinson, ISBN: 9780091925840 (November, 2008), 278 p., £18.99.