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The St. Zita Society: A Novel

3.02 of 5 stars 3.02 · rating details · 709 ratings · 197 reviews

From three-time Edgar Award–winning mystery writer Ruth Rendell comes a captivating and expertly plotted tale of residents and servants on one block of a posh London street—and the deadly ways their lives intertwine.Life for the residents and servants of Hexam Place appears placid and orderly on the outside: drivers take their employers to and from work, dogs are walked, f...more

ebook, 272 pages

Published August 14th 2012 by Scribner (first published July 5th 2012)

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Jul 23, 2012 Srivalli added it · review of another edition

The Saint Zita Society is Ruth Rendell's latest standalone released in July 2012. Ruth Rendell first introduces her characters. There is Dex, who sees evil spirits and get messages on his mobile from Peach- his God, Montserrat, the Still family au pair, who makes a point of knowing everything, who may even blackmail, Thea, who helps everybody not because she wants to but because cannot say no, Preston Still who is away all the time, Lucy Still who meets her lovers clandestine at home, Rabia, who...more The Saint Zita Society is Ruth Rendell's latest standalone released in July 2012. Ruth Rendell first introduces her characters. There is Dex, who sees evil spirits and get messages on his mobile from Peach- his God, Montserrat, the Still family au pair, who makes a point of knowing everything, who may even blackmail, Thea, who helps everybody not because she wants to but because cannot say no, Preston Still who is away all the time, Lucy Still who meets her lovers clandestine at home, Rabia, who lost her children and loves little Thomas Still as her own, Henry, Lord Studley's driver having an affair with both Lady Studley and Miss. Studley and a whole lot others. Next she establishes some facts, the banister is loose, Mrs. Grieves has a good view of Number 7, Dex wants to destroy evil spirits, Montserrat has a new boyfriend, Thea would date anybody as long as he is not ugly or gross. Then she sets the ball rolling, you do know how the ball will roll, or do you? We know something is going to happen, what will it be?

I was little disappointed with her last book The Vault because of rehashing her earlier story from A Sight for sore Eyes. The Vault wasn't bad, actually, it was quite good, she adds new story to the old one and brings in her trademark twists but it is still her old story. But Saint Zita Society is trademark Rendell. I like the way her stories deal with real situations, real characters and real issues. Her crime does not takes place in an isolated place, but in real society.
Wexford books among various things deal with racism and problems in a multi-cultural society. Many of her standalone stories deal with the issue of mental-illness, lonliness, isolation and security. This is a standalone and deals with these issues and also the differences between the Upper-Class and Lower-Class.

An exciting mystery that I enjoyed every word of it. I hope Peach will send me a message- ten free calls. Ha! Ha! Ha!

This review first appeared on my blog Valli's Book Den (less)

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Feb 12, 2013 Kay rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the second book by this author that I've read (Portobello being the first) and her style is beginning to take on a pattern. She takes at least the first third of the book to build the characters and just about when a reader has given up, a crime happens. In this book there are so darn many characters to follow that it is touch to stick with it. They all live and/or work on the high-brown Hexam place. Luckily, on the inside cover is an outline of the street with the houses and the charact...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Teresa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

3 and 1/2 stars

In my recent review of The Child's Child, I said that might be the last Rendell/Vine I read -- it was that bad -- but then I remembered this one that had come out shortly before and decided I would try it right away. I'm glad I did because it almost wiped out the bad taste of the former, even though I can say of this one what I also said of Tigerlily's Orchids: "Rendell uses one of her tried-and-true formulas here ...: Throw a group of disparate individuals ... together ... and se...more

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Nov 17, 2012 Shonna Froebel rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This stand-alone mystery is Rendell's latest. The plot revolves around the people who live on Hexam Place in London, primarily the servants. June, a long-serving retainer of one wealthy woman forms the St. Zita Society, a group encompassing the servants, to discuss issues that affect them. The group is loosely formed and lacks real purpose.
The plot here moves very slowly and the characters are the focus of the story. June, an elderly servant, of a similar age to her employer, who shows a certain...more

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Sep 22, 2012 Doreen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle

I’ve been a fan of Ruth Rendell (and Barbara Vine) for many years, and always look forward to another of her books. For the first time, I find myself disappointed.

The book is much more a social satire than a mystery. It focuses on relationships among servants and their employers, residents of upscale Hexam Place in London. The title refers to the society formed by the servants, the name referring to the patron saint of domestic servants. The club meets at the neighbourhood pub to drink and vent...more I’ve been a fan of Ruth Rendell (and Barbara Vine) for many years, and always look forward to another of her books. For the first time, I find myself disappointed.

The book is much more a social satire than a mystery. It focuses on relationships among servants and their employers, residents of upscale Hexam Place in London. The title refers to the society formed by the servants, the name referring to the patron saint of domestic servants. The club meets at the neighbourhood pub to drink and vent about their employers, whom they sometimes both envy and despise, and their working conditions.

There is a very large cast of 20+ characters. It takes some time to understand the relationships and connections among the characters. These relationships often breed contempt, misunderstandings, resentment, abuse, and even paranoia. The elite residents are usually oblivious to the feelings of their workers. The resident gay couple, for example, has come to expect one of their tenants to perform “’little jobs’ . . . staying in to open the door when a plumber was coming or the postman with a parcel, phoning Westminster City Council whenever a complaint was to be made, putting out their recycling, changing lightbulbs and mending fuses” – all without payment or even acknowledgment. When they decide to have a party to celebrate their civil union, it doesn’t occur to them to invite any servants, who are upset at “Damian and Roland’s snobbish and exclusive conduct.”

In many ways this novel reads like a soap opera with a large number of people behaving badly. Both the servant classes and the upper classes come off badly; human foibles abound. The employers are mercenary, petulant, adulterous, and capable of homicide; the employees are opportunistic, disgruntled, adulterous, and also capable of murder. My feelings towards these characters kept changing; sometimes I felt sympathy for someone, only to have that emotion replaced by disgust.

There are a number of problems with the book. First of all, there is not a great deal of suspense. The first violence doesn’t occur until the middle of the book, and then the disposal of the body is totally farcical. The lack of modern technology stands out. Hexam Place has inhabitants both young and old and seems to reflect contemporary London with its many cultures; there is even a Muslim nanny. However, sometimes I felt as if the events take place in a time warp: a mobile phone is the main possession of one of the characters and plays an important role in the plot, but otherwise no one else seems to have one. Texting doesn’t exist? People get their news only through newspapers? It’s as if televisions don’t exist except as a venue for soap operas. One character has a degree in computer studies and two young girls seem addicted to computer games, but no one uses the internet for news?

Another difficulty is that characters seem to change for no reason. Dr. Simon Jefferson is described as “a real saint, kindness itself to everybody” and “a saint in human form” and a “kindly, genial man who was the favourite of mothers at Great Ormond Street Hospital and whom their children seemed to prefer over their own fathers,” yet at one point he inexplicably comes “to look quite different, to look in fact like another person . . . [a] judge, stern and uncompromising” who speaks in a “cold voice.” This same man just smiles “resignedly” when his driver moves into his home and basically takes over the household?! Another man is portrayed as a bumbling, ineffectual fool who accuses a woman of being a Lady Macbeth; later he plots to have someone killed?

The weakest part is the ending. There is a very abrupt ending – a violent ending – and that is not surprising. What is problematic is that much is left unresolved. No arrests are made for any of the crimes. One man is deeply involved in a death and the police are directed in his direction, but nothing happens to him and there is no indication that the case is closed. There are just too many loose ends; too much is left unexplained.

It is disconcerting to write a negative review of a Ruth Rendell mystery, but this book is not of the calibre I’ve come to expect from her.
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Jul 27, 2012 Roger Pettit rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ruth Rendell is undoubtedly one of the very best crime writers of the past 50 years or so. She writes two sorts of novels. First there are her orthodox crime stories of a whodunit nature. These are usually set in a Sussex market town known as Kingsmarkham and feature a police officer by the name of Reginald Wexford (who, when the series began, was a Detective Chief Inspector). Rendell also writes standalone psychological thrillers. These generally involve characters with an abnormal psychologica...more Ruth Rendell is undoubtedly one of the very best crime writers of the past 50 years or so. She writes two sorts of novels. First there are her orthodox crime stories of a whodunit nature. These are usually set in a Sussex market town known as Kingsmarkham and feature a police officer by the name of Reginald Wexford (who, when the series began, was a Detective Chief Inspector). Rendell also writes standalone psychological thrillers. These generally involve characters with an abnormal psychological bent that results in their committing violent, sometimes sadistic, crimes. "The Saint Zita Society" is the latter type of story. Unfortunately, it is not one of Rendell's best. It is not a bad book but it is dull and unconvincing in parts and it fails to match the storytelling quality of much of the author's earlier work.

"The Saint Zita Society" is set in the intersection of Belgravia and Pimlico, two of the most affluent areas of modern day London. It tells the story of the lives of the residents of an upmarket block of houses and apartments, and of the staff (drivers, au pairs, etc.) who work for them. It is a sort of Upstairs Downstairs thriller. The title of the novel is the name of a group formed by the staff for primarily social purposes. Members of the group meet regularly at a local pub, The Dugong, and discuss between themselves the grievances they each have against their employers. One of their number, Dex, is a typical Rendell character. He is a young gardener with disturbing mental health problems and a history of violent behaviour. He believes that a voice emanating from his mobile phone gives him instructions about what to do in certain circumstances. Dex's unbalanced frame of mind and frequently volatile behaviour have fatal consequences for one character in the story. In a related incident, an accidental fall down a flight of stairs proves fatal for another of the characters and has considerable repercussions for several others. I cannot say more than that without giving away too much of the plot.

"The Saint Zita Society" fails to live up to expectations. Unusually for a Ruth Rendell book, it lacks tension and suspense. The characterisation is surprisingly superficial for the most part. And the author's characteristic ability to shock and to disturb the reader is largely absent. In addition, much of the plot is implausible and the behaviour of many of the principal characters is often simply unconvincing. Indeed, a few of the characters appear to have been introduced simply in order to pad out what is essentially a very slight story. There is a gay couple, for instance, whose presence adds little or nothing to the plot of the book. Having said all that, I would not wish to give the impression that "The Saint Zita Society" is a shockingly bad book. It is not. Despite several prosaic patches, it is readable and enjoyable enough. The problem is that one expects so much more than that from someone of the calibre of Ruth Rendell. Her previous standalone thriller, "Tigerlily's Orchids", was also, for me, not up to her usual standard. One can but hope that the author returns to form with her next book. 6/10. (less)

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Jul 27, 2012 Jennifer rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, library-loan

Who are you and what have you done with Ruth Rendell? This is a distressingly ghastly book.

Rendell's style is here and I know some of her more recent novels have been getting a bit wobbly, so I suppose I must believe that she committed the crime of this book. It improves in the last quarter but the preceding three quarters were jaw-clenchingly awful and had it not been an author I had known and loved I would not have persisted. A pastiche of Alexander McCall Smith's Scotland Street or Corduroy...more

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Apr 04, 2013 Maxine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The St. Zita Society is a modern-day "Upstairs/Downstairs" story, introducing us to the residents of ritzy Hexam Place, one of the top addresses in London, and to the people who work for them.

The Society itself is a group formed by the maids, nannies, companions,and drivers of Hexam Place, mainly to exchange complaints about their employers.

The large cast of characters can be confusing at first, but eventually sorts itself out. The neighbors consist of an elderly, reclusive princess of dubious a...more

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Sep 20, 2012 Shirley Schwartz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Expect the unexpected. It's a Rendell book so the unexpected and the off-the-wall are the norm. I love Ruth Rendell's writing. It's always a treat and it certainly is usually different than the mainstream. No one does weird and downright spooky people like Ruth Rendell and this book has about seven or eight of them. At first it's hard to keep all the characters straight but as I read, they became much clearer. This is a book about a bunch of servants that live in an upper class London neighbourh...more

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May 04, 2013 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This latest book from Ruth Rendell, one of the masters of British mystery writing, has gotten mixed reviews but I have no mixed feelings about it.....I like it. This is a non-Inspector Wexford (her most famous creation) tale of the residents of Hexam Place in London, an upper class neighborhood where most everyone has servants, drivers, or companions to help them cope with life.......and these "below stairs" residents are the major players in this interesting and rather twisted tale where three...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Lynne Perednia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ruth Rendell is, along with P.D. James, the jewel in the crown of British crime fiction after the first Golden Age. Her Inspector Wexford novels, stand-alones and deliciously creepy tales written as Barbara Vine have garnered fans and favorable critical attention for decades.

In recent years, she has enlarged her range to include stand-alone novels taking place on various London streets. THE ST. ZITA SOCIETY takes place among the posh and would-be posh. Set on Hexam Place, it's an "Upstairs, Down...more Ruth Rendell is, along with P.D. James, the jewel in the crown of British crime fiction after the first Golden Age. Her Inspector Wexford novels, stand-alones and deliciously creepy tales written as Barbara Vine have garnered fans and favorable critical attention for decades.

In recent years, she has enlarged her range to include stand-alone novels taking place on various London streets. THE ST. ZITA SOCIETY takes place among the posh and would-be posh. Set on Hexam Place, it's an "Upstairs, Downstairs"-style novel in which those in service, and those roped into doing for others, gather at the local.

June has been lady's maid for more than 60 years to Princess Susan, who came by the title from a long-abandoned Italian prince. June forms the St. Zita Society, which she says is named after the patron saint of domestic servants, as a way for the downstairs group to congregate, discuss issues and perhaps go to a show.

Although most of the others don't mind congregating at the local, they're not that interested in any type of society or causing trouble. It's not that they're cowardly. It's that most of them are too wrapped up in themselves or the onus their employers place upon them.

Take Henry, for example. Lord Studley's valet is sleeping with both Lord Studley's wife and his daughter.
June has to walk the dog but her employer, the princess, is taken with June's nephew, Rad, who acts on a TV soap. Preston Still's wife also is taken with Rad. But it's the Stills' au pair, Montserrat, who has to let him in and out off the house across from where June and the princess live. At least Preston and Lucy Still's children are diligently cared for by Rabia, whose traditional Muslim father wants the young widow to get married again. But Rabia also lost her children and Thomas is such a lovely baby who adores her. Thea isn't in service but her landlords seem to think she works for them without pay.

Then there's Dr. Jefferson. His driver, Jimmy, doesn't work too hard but he does put up with Dex the gardener. Dex killed someone once because a voice commanded him to get rid of that evil spirit. Most people don't have faces to Dex, but there is the voice of Peach, sometimes found by dialing random numbers on his mobile, to guide him.

Rendell sets up these dominoes and, with one push, sets them all into inevitable motion. The rest of the novel is a delightfully devilish discourse on how some people get away with things, how some people only seem to get away with things and how some people are doomed.

Along the way, Rendell is as great as ever with her wicked ability to skewer those who need it, add just the right touches of pathos and the occasional moment of genuine sweetness.

If the set-up seems to take a bit, hang on. It's worth it when those dominoes begin to fall.(less)

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Sep 30, 2012 Jim Leffert rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ruth Rendell’s latest is a serviceable but unexceptional novel about the upstairs and downstairs people who inhabit Hexam Place, a posh residential block in London. One of the latter, June, gathers her peers to form a St. Zita Society, named for the patron saint of domestic servants, hence the title. Another, Thea, objects that she isn’t a really a servant (she does all her labors voluntarily, without pay) but agrees to join as an honorary member. (This is about as droll as this rather dry tale...more

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Dec 03, 2012 Kelley rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was another book club read, not something I would have picked up on my own. After reading the credentials of the author (I have never read her before) I was quite excited to jump right in. I must say I was sadly disappointed. I thought the title a bit confusing since the society really played a very small role in this novel. Other than separating, congregating and introducing the "servants" as the main characters I really didn't see the point of the society itself, it added nothing to this...more

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Mar 30, 2013 Rita Marie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is classic Rendall. She creates a group of characters, sets them to interacting, and then all sorts of things happen, generally involving at least one death. The group here is the upper-class members and the "servants" of Hexam Place, a short block of a dozen houses which is diagrammed in detail inside the front and back covers.

At the beginning it's quite confusing to sort out who is who, which house is which, and who belongs to which house, but it gets easier as the story progresses....more

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Oct 26, 2012 Susan Johnson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book reminded me of Maeve Binchey's last few books. It's set in a certain place with a large cast of characters who all come together and tells how their lives interlace. Rendall's is set on the well heeled street of Hexam Place. It's concerned mostly with the servants who form a social organization called St. Zita's Scoiety. It is so far below Rendall's usual excellence that I almost wept.
The plots are very contrived and, frankly, not very interesting. It's very hard to like any of the cha...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Ant Harrison rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012

I’ve been an avid fan of Ruth Rendell’s work since the 1970s, and have enjoyed almost everything she’s written, so it saddens me to say that I didn’t think that her latest book is nowhere near her best. Her books are always a real treat, something to look forward to, and something to savour and enjoy. With the Saint Zita Society she has once again written about the world she knows and loves best: London and its seemingly endless cast of idiosyncratic and often downright odd characters.

This story...more I’ve been an avid fan of Ruth Rendell’s work since the 1970s, and have enjoyed almost everything she’s written, so it saddens me to say that I didn’t think that her latest book is nowhere near her best. Her books are always a real treat, something to look forward to, and something to savour and enjoy. With the Saint Zita Society she has once again written about the world she knows and loves best: London and its seemingly endless cast of idiosyncratic and often downright odd characters.

This story takes a while to get going, with the first quarter of the novel focusing on descriptions of the people of Hexam Place. I found this a bit tedious, compounded by Rendell’s trade mark extensive cast of characters and off-the-wall names. Eventually, there is a death, but because there had been relatively little earlier attention paid to this person, I felt that she dispatched them somewhat arbitrarily; any one of these people could have been the victim, as there’s no real plot drivers which focus in any particular direction. I also found the whole idea of a group of people forming a local society named after the patron saint of servants to be unbelievable. Credibility of characters’ motivation can sometimes be a problem with Rendell, and it’s very much on show here, and this is a shame.

There’s plenty of wry humour, much of it targeted at the ridiculousness of contemporary society, and one of the few elements that does drive the story forward is the tensions and petty class struggles within this anachronistic group of domestic workers. Montserrat, the au pair from number 7, and June Caldwell and her ‘royal’ employer at number 6, are particularly well drawn and often funny.

Overall, I was left with the feeling that Rendell had run out of energy with this book; it just seemed off-balance, lacking in focus and with the mystery elements not given her usual attention to detail. As I reached the end of the book, the story simply fizzled out, there was no real conclusion; for me then, this was vaguely pleasurable, but ultimately unsatisfying.

© Koplowitz 2012
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Feb 01, 2013 Kathleen Hagen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013-audio

The St. Zita Society, by Ruth Rendell, b-plus, Narrated by Carol Boyd, Produced by Simon & Schuster Audio, Downloaded from audible.com.

This is sort of a spoof, sort of a puzzle by Rendell of the upstairs downstairs variety. In one block on a posh London street, we have an aupair helping her mistress to meet her lover, and then switching allegiance to help the husband cover up an accident. Henry, the valet to a lord, is sleeping with both the lord’s daughter and his wife. And there are other...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Felix Hayman rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oh how I wanted to like this book.And I tried.But the plot and characterisations are so appallingly thin that as the book progressed I not only got lost in the fact that there was no empathy with any character or even any liking forthe plot.
A group of house staff meet on a regular basis to thrash out problems in their local neighbourhood and one accidentally gets involved in a "murder".The plot unwinds in a confused fashion till the ultimate deus ex machina in the last few pages, which,sadly I p...more

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Aug 19, 2012 Tony rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-crime-detection

THE ST. ZITA SOCIETY. (2012). Ruth Rendell. **.
St. Zita is the patron saint of domestic servants, according to this novel. The society we are talking about is, obviously, composed of domestics. The ones of interest are those that work in the houses on Mexam Place in London. Fortunately, there are only about eleven houses and a pub on that street or we would have been subjected to even more characters up front. All of the domestics have their particular quirks and individual relationships with t...more

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Mar 17, 2013 Sam rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This novel is about the residents of Hexham Place & the Saint Zita Society is formed by the au pairs, drivers, cleaners etc of the wealthy property owners.
By Rendell's standards I found this book very disappointing. At the start too many characters were introduced too soon & it wasn't clear who was who until almost a third of the way into the story. I did think that the book improved slightly as it went along but then the ending was poor & I have to say the so called twists were fair...more

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Nov 18, 2012 Amanda Patterson rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The workers of Hexam Place, an exclusive street of Georgian houses, decide to form The Saint Zita Society. Zita was the patron saint of domestic workers. Rendell fills the pages with psychologically damaged characters. Upstairs, we have the unhappily married Preston and Lucy Still; The Princess; Dr Jefferson; Lord and Lady Studley; Damian and Roland. Downstairs, we have au pair, Montserrat, nanny, Rabia and cook, Zinnia; housekeeper, June; chauffeur, Beacon, gardener, Dex; chauffeur, Henry; unpa...more

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Aug 21, 2012 Cyndy rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have been reading this author for over 20 years. Mostly out of habit lately. I used to think she had this incredible way of weaving a story with characters that were so interesting. But lately she's been throwing in a little political rhetoric in her books (she is a liberal member of parliament) and it's predictable and boring. She seems very contemptuous of white, conservative British citizens, portraying them as either snobbish or incredibly stupid. Her characters that are of an ethnic varie...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Maya Panika rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There’s something terribly old fashioned about this book: the language, the situations, the characters, even the way the pub seems to be at the centre of everyone’s social life - it all has the feeling of something written in the eighties or earlier, it certainly doesn’t feel like it was written this century. Just one (of many) examples of this is the misuse and misunderstanding of the role of the mobile phone. Having placed a mobile right at the heart of the story, Ruth Rendell then has a 22 ye...more There’s something terribly old fashioned about this book: the language, the situations, the characters, even the way the pub seems to be at the centre of everyone’s social life - it all has the feeling of something written in the eighties or earlier, it certainly doesn’t feel like it was written this century. Just one (of many) examples of this is the misuse and misunderstanding of the role of the mobile phone. Having placed a mobile right at the heart of the story, Ruth Rendell then has a 22 year old character desperately waiting for the paper to come out in order to catch the news. Never once does Montserrat check her phone for an update or even check her texts.

All the young people are wrong, VERY wrong, they don't feel real at all. The older characters are more believable but the thing as a whole is not good. Too many loose ends are not tied up, too many things simply don't add up, too many things aren't explained because they can't be explained. I hesitate to give specific details because I'm sure there are people who do want to hear this audio and I don't want to spoil their fun, but there are far too many badly-thought out, unimaginative and lazy details in this story.

None of the characters were especially well-drawn, but there seemed to me something particularly off about the minorities, those who were ethnically or mentally ‘different’. I don’t really know quite what it was that bothered me, nothing concrete, just something in the tone, something dreadfully caricature that left me with a rather uncomfortable feeling. It was just one more thing to dislike in this generally lacklustre telling of a mundane tale.

The audiobook is read by Carole Boyd, aka Linda Snell, a voice instantly recognisable to anyone who follows The Archers; she does her best with the material she’s been given.

I didn’t hate The St. Vita Society, but I didn’t much like it either; it didn’t rouse any strong emotions in me. In short, it was predictable, unremarkable, bog-standard and disappointing.
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Sep 09, 2012 Nick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is not her best work, but even Ruth Rendell's worst is better than most other people. She continues to be great at drawing characters and even in her more forgettable mysteries -- and this is one of them -- I am still impressed by her plotting. I thought her most recent, The Vault, was far better and would prefer if she returned to that more traditional body-in-the-first chapter whodunnit structure. But I'm not going to lie: I'll still read anything she writes, usually within a few months o...more

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Oct 14, 2012 Morgan Golladay rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not all is at it seems on the surface in Hexam Place, one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in London. Rendell takes us on a penetrating journey into the lives of the upper class owners and the lower class servants and companions who reside and live out of the 11 houses on this street. The link between our characters is their morality, or lack of it. We see a cross-section of the London population under Rendell's probing microscope, with murder, snobbery, and extra-marital affairs adding spice...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Leanna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mysterious

I can always count on Ruth Rendell. Her standalone novels (which I love more than the Wexford series) are full of weird characters with morbid habits, and this book didn't disappoint.

The book flap implies that Dex, the man recently released from a mental institution (he tried to stab his mother), whose cellphone service provider is a god inside his phone, is the main character. But he's really one of an assortment who make up the Saint Zita Society- a group of servants and house-workers all livi...more

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Sep 12, 2012 Lora rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The servants who live along Hexam Place in London have formed the St. Zita Society, in which they go to the Dugong (a local pub at the end of the block) to talk about various issues they have with their employers and what's going on around the street. The group is spearheaded by June, who's been the housekeeper to "Princess" Susan Hapsburg for sixty years (the other servants aren't quite as gung-ho about the group). Henry, driver to Lord Studley, is having affairs with both the Lord's wife and d...more

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Aug 27, 2012 The Wee Hen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 04, 2012 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed this book. The book is very funny, very tightly written. There are a lot of characters, but she really makes them sympathetic and nuanced without a lot of back story (in most cases). Initially it was a little tough to follow who lived where, but the map in the front and back cover of the book was very helpful.

This is kind of a light, darkly humorous book (assuming you find murder can be funny). If you like 'Downtown Abbey' or 'Upstairs Downstairs' or just a fun, dark glimpse of...more

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Dec 29, 2012 Riodelmartians rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Usually Ruth Rendell focuses on 2-3 characters and w enter their heads. This time we enter all the characters in a posh London neighborhood with more attention to the 'help.' the plot reflects the interactions of a complex organism. There is the slow going first 50 pages with all the intros and character quirks sprinkled with the modus operandi for the coming accident/murders, but when the body drops the fun and quirks really come to life. disposal of the body is always the most challenging aspe...more

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