Portobello Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Portobello Book

As well as Ruth Rendell’s customary expertise with the narrative demands of crime fiction, Portobello provides a colourful and eccentric portrait of one of the most distinctive areas of the capital, the Portobello district of West London. To both Londoners and visitors, the areas is lively and exciting, but there is a level of criminality here which Rendell handles as adroitly as ever. The book is something of departure for the author, less plot-led than customarily. Eugene Wrenn, who lives modestly despite his wealth, has inherited an art gallery from his father. But Eugene moves to a more upmarket location in Kensington Church Street. He is 50, but looks older than his age, and is plagued by an addictive personality (currently, he finds himself unable to give up an addiction to low-calorie sweets). Despite this, he has a reasonably happy relationship with a GP, Ella, who finds herself able to put up with these quirks -- at least, those she knows about. Eugene discovers an envelope containing money, which he picks up in the street. But instead of doing the logical thing and taking it to the police, he sticks a note on a lamppost near his house, asking whoever lost it to claim the money (but withholding information only known to the real owner) The first to apply is a small-time criminal, Lance (recently thrown out of his house for domestic violence), who is thinking of casing the house of his benefactor -- even if he is initially unable to get the money. But the genuine owner of the money is the disturbed Joel, who lives in a self-induced darkness and shares his life with a phantom companion. Utilising this disparate and eccentric cast of characters, Rendell forges a discursive but compelling novel that (as always with her work) keeps us reading inexorably. Some may find the characterisation broader than they are used to with Rendell, but this is still seductive fare. --Barry ForshawRead More

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  • Amazon

    Eugene Wren is fifty, with prematurely white hair. He is too secretive for his own good. 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.

  • Foyles

    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 own obsessions, problems, dreams and despairs. And through it all the hectic life of Portobello bustles on...

  • ASDA

    Eugene Wren is fifty with prematurely white hair. He is too secretive for his own good. 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.

  • 0099538636
  • 9780099538639
  • Ruth Rendell
  • 13 August 2009
  • Arrow Books Ltd
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 384
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