The Saint Zita Society
Ruth Rendell
The Saint Zita Society
'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'. Dex works as a gardener for Dr Jefferson at his home on Hexam Place in Pimlico: an exclusive street of white-painted stucco Georgian houses inhabited by the rich, and serviced by the not so rich. The hired help, a motley assortment of au pairs, drivers and cleaners, decide to form the St Zita Society (Zita was the patron saint of domestic servants) as an excuse to meet at the local pub and air their grievances. When Dex is invited to attend one of these meetings, the others find that he is a strange man, seemingly ill at ease with human beings. These first impressions are compounded when they discover he has recently been released from a hospital for the criminally insane, where he was incarcerated for attempting to kill his own mother. Dex's most meaningful relationship seems to be with his mobile phone service provider, Peach, and he interprets the text notifications and messages he receives from the company as a reassuring sign that there is some kind of god who will protect him. And give him instructions about ridding the world of evil spirits...Accidental death and pathological madness cohabit above and below stairs in Hexam Place.
4.2 out of 5 based on 5 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Fiction |
| Genre |
General Fiction, Crime, Thrillers & Mystery |
| Format |
Hardcover |
| Pages |
288 |
| RRP |
|
| Date of Publication |
July 2012 |
| ISBN |
978-0091944049 |
| Publisher |
Hutchinson |
| |
'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'. Dex works as a gardener for Dr Jefferson at his home on Hexam Place in Pimlico: an exclusive street of white-painted stucco Georgian houses inhabited by the rich, and serviced by the not so rich. The hired help, a motley assortment of au pairs, drivers and cleaners, decide to form the St Zita Society (Zita was the patron saint of domestic servants) as an excuse to meet at the local pub and air their grievances. When Dex is invited to attend one of these meetings, the others find that he is a strange man, seemingly ill at ease with human beings. These first impressions are compounded when they discover he has recently been released from a hospital for the criminally insane, where he was incarcerated for attempting to kill his own mother. Dex's most meaningful relationship seems to be with his mobile phone service provider, Peach, and he interprets the text notifications and messages he receives from the company as a reassuring sign that there is some kind of god who will protect him. And give him instructions about ridding the world of evil spirits...Accidental death and pathological madness cohabit above and below stairs in Hexam Place.
The Vault by Ruth Rendell.
The Monster in the Box by Ruth Rendell.
Tigerlily's Orchids by Ruth Rendell.
Reviews
The Daily Express
Sophie Hannah
“Rendell is brilliant at showing how proximity and distance can co-exist; how people’s lives can intersect in a practical sense without ever really touching in any meaningful way. In her London fiction she explores both the security and the dangers inherent in living side by side with people one knows only superficially, people who, like all Rendell’s characters, hide everything they crave and fear from one another in order to appear socially acceptable.”
01/07/2012
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The Guardian
Laura Wilson
“All the characters are kept in play without ever relinquishing the necessary suspense for a fascinating murder mystery.”
13/07/2012
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The Independent
Jane Jakeman
“Rendell is excellent on the delicate snobbery of the uneasy territory in between the social classes and the resentful pride of those who might in the past have been termed "companions" rather than ladies' maids, or of "trustafarians" whose families have fallen on hard times. The novel's plot forms a complex web in which power sways back and forth between employer and employed, where every coming or going has an observer, and it's not long before we anticipate at least two deaths on the way.”
14/07/2012
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The Sunday Times
Joan Smith
“Rendell’s prose style is unadorned, but she uses it to create memorable characters and nail-biting suspense.”
08/07/2012
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The Evening Standard
Mark Sanderson
“Rendell notices how dandruff drifts onto an old woman’s toast; points out that the victims of stabbings are always portrayed as saints instead of “slimeballs”; is all too aware that luck rewards vice as much as virtue. To read her nowadays is akin to quaffing a glass of what the fake princess calls “TDTINW” — the drink that is never wrong — champagne. She is exhilarating, makes you giggle yet leaves you with an acidic aftertaste.”
02/08/2012
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