A Judgement in Stone
By Ruth Rendell
- Release Date: 2000-01-04
- Genre: Police Procedural
Description
What on earth could have provoked a modern day St. Valentine's Day massacre?
On Valentine's Day, four members of the Coverdale family--George, Jacqueline, Melinda and Giles--were murdered in the space of 15 minutes. Their housekeeper, Eunice Parchman, shot them, one by one, in the blue light of a televised performance of Don Giovanni. When Detective Chief Superintendent William Vetch arrests Miss Parchman two weeks later, he discovers a second tragedy: the key to the Valentine's Day massacre hidden within a private humiliation Eunice Parchman has guarded all her life. A brilliant rendering of character, motive, and the heady discovery of truth, A Judgement in Stone is among Ruth Rendell's finest psychological thrillers.
Reviews
Couldn't put it down.
5By DCJonA judgement in stone tells how an illiterate housekeeper comes to murder the family she works for. We are told as much on the first page. The book's sorcery is to hold us spellbound even though we know how it comes out. The magic, of course, is in the telling. Rendell writes as though she were the love child of Muriel Spark and Truman Capote. She may not be as fine as they but few readers will real care when caught in her spell, as this reader was.
