Thursday 15 December 2016

Review: The Killing Doll by Ruth Rendell

★★

"I kill, therefore I am."

This is one of those books I feel I shouldn't give too much away about, suffice to say it is about a teenage boy who sells his soul to the devil and how that decision affects his sister's life. When I say devil I do not mean a literal character, this is not a fantasy, rather a suspenseful study of the occult and mental illness, touching on alcoholism and with a bit of murder thrown in for good measure. Sounds cheery doesn't it?

I honestly had no idea where this was going until I was about 70% through it, Rendell builds the tension very well throughout and kept me interested enough to carry on while I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen. The characters are some of the more interesting I have read about (maybe because this would not be my go to choice of genre) and the narration was constantly switching between them which I really enjoyed. By the end I could tell who's mind I was in even if it wasn't made clear for a couple of sentences.

This is a book where the small things matter, you notice the routines of the characters and their little quirks. There is no travelling and the whole book revolves around one house in a London suburb. I think the small scope completely absorbed me and I emerged from the last page a little stunned at having been dumped back into reality.

If you like a little bit of darkness and a slow burn then this is the book for you.

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