Nobody does North London squalor better than Ruth Rendell. Describing in vivid detail the cultural sewer in which a monster named Teddy Brex grows up, she uses hideous furniture, slovenly housekeeping habits, even his mother's diet while pregnant to root us in the setting's hopeless ugliness. In contrast, Rendell introduces people and places of stunning beauty: Francine, a mentally fragile girl who became mute after witnessing her mother's murder; and Orcadia Cottage, scene of a famous painting that is at the center of much of the story's anguish. "It was far and away the most beautiful place he had ever seen," Rendell writes when Teddy--a gifted woodcrafter--first views the cottage. "The proportions of this hall, this room... the windows, the walls, the carpets, the flowers, the furniture, the paintings, all of it dazzled him."

Teddy is another of Rendell's frightening moral cripples, a seemingly ordinary person capable of the vilest crimes. When he becomes obsessed with Francine after meeting her at art school, we know to expect murder--we just aren't sure when, or who will be the victim. Equally vile is Julia, Francine's stepmother, a psychologist of such immense and malevolent ineptness that we would swear she couldn't possibly exist if real life hadn't taught us otherwise. Other important characters are Harriet, a faded beauty who connects the past to the present; Teddy's uncle Keith, who first recognizes the boy's madness; and a bright red, lovingly restored Edsel, which becomes a hearse.

Like all of her books, Rendell's latest is really about the secret acts of insanity that occur behind closed doors. Among her best books available in paperback are From Doon with Death, A Guilty Thing Surprised, The Keys to the Street, and, from the excellent Inspector Wexford series, Kissing the Gunner's Daughter, Road Rage, and Simisola. --Dick Adler


From Publishers Weekly
A pair of English teens, Teddy and Francine (who have grown up in dysfunctional families where common parenting faults are taken to extremes), meet and think that in each other they might find the beauty and freedom their own lives are lacking. Their troubled affair takes a while to get going, but once it does, Rendell's sharp characterizations and idiosyncratic descriptions are riveting. Though several deaths occur in the book, the only real mystery is that of the murder of Francine's mother, which Francine overheard (near the novel's beginning) when she was seven. Instead, Rendell (Road Rage, etc.) focuses more on how a few sedately bizarre ticks can build exponentially into insanity. Francine's stepmother, for example, progresses from simple worry about her stepdaughter's well-being to obsessive anxiety that borders on dementia. Rendell follows the story's principal objects as closely as she does its characters: the diamond and sapphire engagement ring that Teddy's indifferent mother finds in a public bathroom; the video case in which Francine's mother hid her love letters, the painting of two young lovers that shows Teddy the perfect beauty he would kill for. Rendell leaves nothing and no one unaccounted for, from the looks given by the neighbors over the fence to the idle thoughts that pass through characters' minds when they scan a room. A tour-de-force of psychological suspense, the novel culminates in a dramatic climax that's as unforgettable as what has preceded it. Mystery Guild main selection; Literary Guild featured alternate; simultaneous audio and large print editions; author tour. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
With almost 50 books to her credit, Rendell has the knack of drawing readers in and holding them through the last page. In her latest psychological thriller she intertwines the stories of three somewhat damaged characters whose lives intersect in a most unfortunate way. First there is Francine, who witnessed her mother's murder at age seven and has been suffocated by an obsessively overprotective father and stepmother ever since. Teddy, born to indifferent parents, is now an adult with almost no social skills and a penchant for using murder to remove obstacles in his path. Finally, there is Harriet. Once beautiful and the subject of a famous painting, she is now bored, rich, and used to having affairs with repairmen in her quest for constant attention. The story is filled with tension, and Rendell is so adept at keeping the reader guessing that it's almost a relief to finish and be able to relax again. Recommended for all public libraries.-?Caroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., ORCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Here is Rendell's multilayered psychological suspense. Teddy, an unloved child, grows into an amoral young man who covets Francine, an overprotected shop girl who witnessed her mother's murder. Throw in Harriet, predatory housewife, and Julia, sicko psychiatrist, and the chances for a happy outcome diminish. The characters' control over others is important here, and Pigott-Smith expresses this with his ability to manage speed and dynamics. In one spot laughter echoes, and he makes you hear it. He also tells a lot about a character by mere insinuation. The story line is clear, but several subplots make careful listening to the abridgment a must. J.B.G. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Kirkus Reviews
Rendell's 46th (Road Rage, 1997, etc.) is a modern-day fairy taleMargaret Yorke meets Fay Weldonthat shows the dark side of lovers' reckless pursuit of their objects of beauty. In long-ago happier days, Harriet Oxenholme was the lover of rock star Marc Syre. (In the novel's opening scene, their love is being immortalized in a famous painting; the next time we see them, two years and many pages later, he's throwing her bodily out of his house.) Now, faded and florid, she's reduced to searching the adverts for workmen who can come to her lovely house to fill the hours left empty by her loveless marriage. Beautiful woodworker Teddy Brex seems perfect for the role of her next lover. But Teddy, an unloved child whose scary lack of nurturing has led him to prize beautiful things above people, is less interested in Harriet than in her houseor in Francine Hill, a fairy princess with a secret that, if he only knew it, makes her perfect for Teddy's frighteningly abrupt style of courtship: as a child of six, she saw her mother open the door to the man who shot her to death and then came upstairs to Francine's hiding place. Surviving both that nightmare and the six months of muteness that followed, Francine has grown up under the pathologically controlling eye of her wicked stepmother Julia. Once she's set up her constellation of users and beautiful objects and shown how Harriet and Teddy can fulfill both functions at once, Rendell focuses on the doomed romance of murderous Teddy and haunted Francine with all the loving attention of a watchmaker regarding a ticking bomb. If the result lacks the energy and inevitability of the classic A Judgment in Stone, Rendell supplies a Dickensian wealth of social detail that brings her beautiful people and their predators to startling life. (Mystery Guild main selection; Literary Guild featured aternate; author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
Ruth Rendell is...

"The best mystery writer in the English-speaking world."
--Time

"A phenomenon."
--Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review

Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award

A Sight For Sore Eyes is...

"Harrowing...a flawless piece of craftsmanship."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Stunning."
--The Washington Post Book World

"Bold, imaginative...spare and unforgiving."
--The New York Times Book Review

"No one can match Rendell, chill for chill."
--Chicago Tribune

"Unequivocally, the most brilliant mystery novelist of our time."
--Patricia Cornwell

"One of the most remarkable novelists of her generation."
--People


Review
Ruth Rendell is...

"The best mystery writer in the English-speaking world."
--Time

"A phenomenon."
--Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review

Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award

A Sight For Sore Eyes is...

"Harrowing...a flawless piece of craftsmanship."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Stunning."
--The Washington Post Book World

"Bold, imaginative...spare and unforgiving."
--The New York Times Book Review

"No one can match Rendell, chill for chill."
--Chicago Tribune

"Unequivocally, the most brilliant mystery novelist of our time."
--Patricia Cornwell

"One of the most remarkable novelists of her generation."
--People


Book Description
Teddy was born in squalor. Now he is a craftsman determined to banish ugliness from his life. Harriet is a beautiful, bored trophy wife who employs a series of repairmen for her sexual satisfaction. And Francine is a college student who witnessed her mother's murder and now must free herself from her father's manipulative second wife. Connected by strands of chance, their lives intersecting in the strangest of ways, these three people are on a journey that will bring them to each other--and to a beautiful ivy-covered home with at least one dead body in the basement....



From the Publisher
10 cds


From the Inside Flap
Teddy was born in squalor. Now he is a craftsman determined to banish ugliness from his life. Harriet is a beautiful, bored trophy wife who employs a series of repairmen for her sexual satisfaction. And Francine is a college student who witnessed her mother's murder and now must free herself from her father's manipulative second wife. Connected by strands of chance, their lives intersecting in the strangest of ways, these three people are on a journey that will bring them to each other--and to a beautiful ivy-covered home with at least one dead body in the basement....


From the Back Cover
Ruth Rendell is...

"The best mystery writer in the English-speaking world."
--Time

"A phenomenon."
--Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review

Winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award

A Sight For Sore Eyes is...

"Harrowing...a flawless piece of craftsmanship."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Stunning."
--The Washington Post Book World

"Bold, imaginative...spare and unforgiving."
--The New York Times Book Review

"No one can match Rendell, chill for chill."
--Chicago Tribune

"Unequivocally, the most brilliant mystery novelist of our time."
--Patricia Cornwell

"One of the most remarkable novelists of her generation."
--People



About the Author
Ruth Rendell's many writing awards include three Edgars and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America as well as four Golden Daggers from England's Crime Writers Association. She is also the author of Harm Done, Road Rage, The Keys to the Street, Simisola, The Crocodile Bird, and many more acclaimed novels.

She lives in England. In 1997 she was named a life peer in the House of Lords.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
They were to hold hands and look at one another. Deeply, into each other's eyes.

"It's not a sitting," she said. "It's a standing. Why can't I sit on his knee?"

He laughed. Everything she said amused or delighted him, everything about her captivated him from her dark red curly hair to her small white feet. The painter's instructions were that he should look at her as if in love and she at him as if enthralled. This was easy, this was to act naturally.

"Don't be silly, Harriet," said Simon Alpheton. "The very idea! Have you ever seen a painting by Rembrandt called The Jewish Bride?"

They hadn't. Simon described it to them as he began his preliminary sketch. "It's a very tender painting, it expresses the protective love of the man for his young submissive bride. They're obviously wealthy, they're very richly dressed, but you can see that they're sensitive, thoughtful people and they're in love."

"Like us. Rich and in love. Do we look like them?"

"Not in the least, and I don't think you'd want to. Ideas of beauty have changed."

"You could call it 'The Red-haired Bride.' "

"She's not your bride. I am going to call it 'Marc and Harriet in Orcadia Place'--what else? Now would you just stop talking for a bit, Marc?"

The house they stood in front of was described by those who knew about such things as a Georgian cottage and built of the kind of red bricks usually called mellow. But at this time of the year, midsummer, almost all the brickwork was hidden under a dense drapery of Virginia creeper, its leaves green, glossy and quivering in the light breeze. The whole surface of the house seemed to shiver and rustle, a vertical sea of green ruffled into wavelets by the wind.

Simon Alpheton was fond of walls, brick walls, flint walls, walls of wood and walls of stone. When he painted Come Hither outside the studio in Hanging Sword Alley he placed them against a concrete wall stuck all over with posters. As soon as he saw that Marc's house had a wall of living leaves he wanted also to paint that, with Marc and Harriet too, of course. The wall was a shining cascade in many shades of green, Marc was in a dark-blue suit, thin black tie and white shirt, and Harriet was all in red.

When the autumn came those leaves would turn the same color as her hair and her dress. Then they would gradually bleach to gold, to pale-yellow, fall and make a nuisance of themselves, filling the whole of that hedge-enclosed paved square and the entire backyard to a depth of several inches. The brickwork of the house would once more be revealed and the occasional, probably fake, bit of half-timbering. And in the spring of 1966 pale-green shoots would appear and the leafy cycle begin all over again. Simon thought about that as he drew leaves and hair and pleated silk.

"Don't do that," he said, as Marc reached forward to kiss Harriet, at the same time keeping hold of her hand and drawing her toward him. "Leave her alone for five minutes, can't you?"

"It's hard, man, it's hard."

"Tenderness is what I want to catch, not lust. Right?"

"My foot's gone to sleep," said Harriet. "Can we take a break, Simon?"

"Another five minutes. Don't think about your foot. Look at him and think about how much you love him."

She looked up at him and he looked down at her. He held her left hand in his right hand and their eyes met in a long gaze, and Simon Alpheton painted them, preserving them in the front garden of Orcadia Cottage, if not forever, for a very long time.

"Maybe I'll buy it," Harriet said later, looking with approval at the outline of her face and figure.

"What with?" Marc kissed her. His voice was gentle but his words were not. "You haven't any money."

When Simon Alpheton looked back to that day he thought that this was the beginning of the end, the worm in the bud showing its ugly face and writhing body among the flowers.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Francine has been scolded and sent to her room. When she peeks downstairs she glimpses a visitor as he brutally murders her mother. For the next nine months Francine will be mute, and when she speaks she will be unable to identify the killer.... Harriet, an aging, fading beauty, scans the local classified ads for handymen to perform odd jobs around the house and to alleviate in her bedroom the boredom of her marriage to a wealthy, older man.... Born to a pair of feckless, barely socialized parents, never played with, cuddled, or even talked to, Teddy has become a very handsome young man who never questions his discovery that killing is an easy way to get what he wants....

SYNOPSIS

Ruth Rendell may just be the master of the modern psychological mystery, and now, more than 40 books into her career, she has written one of her most brilliant. Dealing with Rendell's usual theme of the disturbances of human love, Sight for Sore Eyes finds a rock star and his lover dealing with the nightmare of misbegotten romance, and with the darkness that enters their lives in the form of a young man named Teddy. Rendell fans and readers new to her work will love this one.

FROM THE CRITICS

Entertainment Weekly

...[E]ver the master puppeteer, [Rendell] manipulates the interactions of a delicate but resourceful girl, a dangerously handsome boy, and a truly twisted stepmother.

Book Magazine

In a conclusion horrific even by Rendell's grisly standards, the novelist reinforces the old axiom that vanity can be the death of you.

Publishers Weekly

A pair of English teens, Teddy and Francine (who have grown up in dysfunctional families where common parenting faults are taken to extremes), meet and think that in each other they might find the beauty and freedom their own lives are lacking. Their troubled affair takes a while to get going, but once it does, Rendell's sharp characterizations and idiosyncratic descriptions are riveting. Though several deaths occur in the book, the only real mystery is that of the murder of Francine's mother, which Francine overheard (near the novel's beginning) when she was seven. Instead, Rendell (Road Rage, etc.) focuses more on how a few sedately bizarre ticks can build exponentially into insanity. Francine's stepmother, for example, progresses from simple worry about her stepdaughter's well-being to obsessive anxiety that borders on dementia. Rendell follows the story's principal objects as closely as she does its characters: the diamond and sapphire engagement ring that Teddy's indifferent mother finds in a public bathroom; the video case in which Francine's mother hid her love letters, the painting of two young lovers that shows Teddy the perfect beauty he would kill for. Rendell leaves nothing and no one unaccounted for, from the looks given by the neighbors over the fence to the idle thoughts that pass through characters' minds when they scan a room. A tour-de-force of psychological suspense, the novel culminates in a dramatic climax that's as unforgettable as what has preceded it. Mystery Guild main selection; Literary Guild featured alternate; simultaneous audio and large print editions; author tour. (Mar.)

Library Journal

With almost 50 books to her credit, Rendell has the knack of drawing readers in and holding them through the last page. In her latest psychological thriller she intertwines the stories of three somewhat damaged characters whose lives intersect in a most unfortunate way. First there is Francine, who witnessed her mother's murder at age seven and has been suffocated by an obsessively overprotective father and stepmother ever since. Teddy, born to indifferent parents, is now an adult with almost no social skills and a penchant for using murder to remove obstacles in his path. Finally, there is Harriet. Once beautiful and the subject of a famous painting, she is now bored, rich, and used to having affairs with repairmen in her quest for constant attention. The story is filled with tension, and Rendell is so adept at keeping the reader guessing that it's almost a relief to finish and be able to relax again. Recommended for all public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/98.]--Caroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR

AudioFile - Michael Ollove