a book
Live Flesh
Ruth Rendell · 1986 · 272 pages
Why did he do it? Why had it happened? What sort if fiend was he? Why should he, Victor Jenner, the child of happily married, middle-class parents, succumb to such violent rages? Why should he have needed to make motiveless attacks on women? Victor didn't know. But Victor did know that the last ten years - the years in prison - had been a mistake. He had never intended to rape the girl, he had never intended to harm anyone. It had all been an accident. In fact, his life had been a series of accidents, one mistake leading to the next. Now, out of prison at last, Victor still isn't free. The past holds him so he can't go forward. So Victor goes back - and begins a new chain of accidents, a new string of tragic mistakes.
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Ian Rankin
“In truth, I could have chosen any one of Ruth Rendell’s many novels, but this was the first I read. I had just left university and moved to London with the mad scheme of becoming a full-time novelist. Rendell remains the crime writer’s crime writer, never content merely to hoodwink the reader with red herrings. Often she dispenses with the ‘whodunit’ element early on, because her real interest is in human motive and the aspects of society which make criminal behaviour possible (and sometimes inevitable). Live Flesh concerns an ex-con whose life seems to have been a series of accidents and wrong turns. Can he exert any control at all over events, or is each step of his journey pre-determined? It is a question many of the other writers in this list have wrestled with. The best crime writers have always explored not only our deepest natures but the nature of society itself. I think that’s why so many of us keep reading crime fiction.”↗