The St. Zita Society
A Novel
Read by: Carol Boyd
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 in the well-manicured London locale of Hexam Place is not as placid and orderly as it appears. Behind the tranquil gardens and polished entryways, relationships between servants and their employers are set to combust.
Henry, the handsome valet to Lord Studley, is sleeping with both the Lord’s wife and his university-age daughter. Montserrate, the Still family’s lazy au pair, is helping to hide Mrs. Still’s illicit affair with a television actor—for a small fee. June, the haughty housekeeper to a princess of dubious origin, is hard at work forming a “society” for servants to address complaints about their employers. Meanwhile, a disturbed gardener, Dex, believes a voice in his cellphone is giving him godlike instructions—that could endanger the lives of all who reside in Hexam Place.
A deeply observed and suspenseful update to the upstairs/downstairs genre, The St. Zita Society is Ruth Rendall at her incisive best.
Life in the well-manicured London locale of Hexam Place is not as placid and orderly as it appears. Behind the tranquil gardens and polished entryways, relationships between servants and their employers are set to combust.
Henry, the handsome valet to Lord Studley, is sleeping with both the Lord’s wife and his university-age daughter. Montserrate, the Still family’s lazy au pair, is helping to hide Mrs. Still’s illicit affair with a television actor—for a small fee. June, the haughty housekeeper to a princess of dubious origin, is hard at work forming a “society” for servants to address complaints about their employers. Meanwhile, a disturbed gardener, Dex, believes a voice in his cellphone is giving him godlike instructions—that could endanger the lives of all who reside in Hexam Place.
A deeply observed and suspenseful update to the upstairs/downstairs genre, The St. Zita Society is Ruth Rendall at her incisive best.
Choose a format:
Buy from us:
- Simon & Schuster Audio |
- ISBN 9781442349810 |
- August 2012
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Praise
“If you're unfamiliar with Ruth Rendell, if you've somehow managed to miss her 60 or so books, if you've never experienced the frisson produced by her unique blend of elegant prose and brutal plotting or laughed out loud at her acidic humor or social observations, then congratulations: Your reading life is about to get infinitely richer… As with Patricia Highsmith, Rendell is a brilliant if detached observer of all levels of society… Like Charles Dickens, Rendell writes about contemporary London crime, but no one would call Dickens just a mystery writer. Rendell's work is too great, too thought-provoking and too important to be pigeonholed. The only mystery is why everyone doesn't know it.”
– Jonathan Shapiro, Los Angeles Times on The St. Zita Society
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“If you're unfamiliar with Ruth Rendell, if you've somehow managed to miss her 60 or so books, if you've never experienced the frisson produced by her unique blend of elegant prose and brutal plotting or laughed out loud at her acidic humor or social observations, then congratulations: Your reading life is about to get infinitely richer… As with Patricia Highsmith, Rendell is a brilliant if detached observer of all levels of society… Like Charles Dickens, Rendell writes about contemporary London crime, but no one would call Dickens just a mystery writer. Rendell's work is too great, too thought-provoking and too important to be pigeonholed. The only mystery is why everyone doesn't know it.”– Jonathan Shapiro, Los Angeles Times on The St. Zita Society
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“The St. Zita Society takes up residence in a picturesque London street and ever so slowly and delicately eviscerates the pretentious upper-middle-class residents…as often happens in Rendell’s novels of psychological suspense, characters are undone by their own obsessions. But these meltdowns are executed with such stealth and subtlety that the psychic cracks aren’t visible -- until suddenly they are.”– Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review
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“Written with Rendell’s customary grace and precision…[The St. Zita Society] will reward those who crave deep character studies and thought-provoking questions of guilt and innocence.”– Sandra Parshall, Washington Independent Review of Books
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“The prolific Rendell, the author of more than 60 works of fiction and a master of well-paced suspense and insight, has again written a novel that inspires grim smiles and great shocks.”– Jay Strafford, Richmond Times-Dispatch
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“Upstairs, Downstairs in sordid hyper-drive…one of Britain’s leading crime writers turns her attention to orchestrating the tangled and secretive lives of masters and servants on a London street.”– Jimmy So, The Daily Beast
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“Yet another gem…The St. Zita Society is both a sex comedy and a social satire, of the ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ variety, with a few murders mixed in for our added delight.”– Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post Book World
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“A gripping portrayal of the London world of servants and their masters, all marching toward an inevitable--and violent--conclusion…The St. Zita Society, a brilliantly crafted novel of psychological suspense, further enforces [Rendell’s] rightful place as the queen of British mystery writing.”– Kerry McHugh, Shelf Awareness
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“Rendell, an expert craftsman, has delivered the goods again.”– Muriel Dobbin, The Washington Times
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“A modern, murderous take on the relationship between master and servant in modern England.”– Susannah Cahalan, The New York Post
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“A trip down a road so twisted that only a guide as skillful as Rendell could navigate it without a false step.”– Elly Griffiths, Denver Post
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“Rendell’s offbeat characters will stay with you long after you have closed the book.”– Salem Macknee, Charlotte Observer
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“Hilariously funny throughout, with a chilling twist at the end that pays homage to Daphne du Maurier’s Don’t Look Now. Every character is sharply drawn and three-dimensional, every situation credible no matter how unlikely or coincidental.”– Robert Croan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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“This novel radiates tension…Rendell creates characters that seem to forsake the page of a Kindle or a Nook, and live beyond the borders of her novels.”– Stephen Anable, Publishers Weekly
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“[A] masterwork…dark, intelligent and intriguing.”– People
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“An updated Downton Abbey with a higher body count.”– Mail on Sunday (UK)
Read an Excerpt
1
SOMEONE HAD TOLD Dex that the queen lived in Victoria. So did he, but she had a palace and he had one room in a street off Warwick Way. Still he liked the idea that she was his neighbour. He liked quite a lot about the new life he had been living for the past few months. He had this job with Dr. Jefferson that meant he could work in a garden three mornings a week, and Dr. Jefferson had said he would speak to the lady next door about doing a morning for her. While he was drawing his incapacity benefit, he had been told he shouldn’t get any wages, but Dr. Jefferson never asked, and maybe the lady called Mrs.... see more
Hear an Excerpt
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