The St. Zita Society, Ruth Rendell
The St. Zita Society, Ruth Rendell
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The St. Zita Society

Author: Ruth Rendell

Narrator: Carol Boyd

Unabridged: 8 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/14/2012


Synopsis

This captivating novel about residents and servants on one block of a posh London street is a “sex comedy and a social satire, of the ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ variety, with a few murders mixed in for our added delight” (The Washington Post Book World).

*Includes an excerpt of Rendell's final novel, Dark Corners *

Life on Hexam Place appears orderly on the outside: drivers take their employers to and from work, dogs are walked, flowers are planted in gardens. But beneath this tranquil veneer, this quintessentially London world of servants and their masters is set to combust. Henry, the handsome valet to Lord Studley, is sleeping with both the Lord’s wife and his university-age daughter. Montserrat, the Still family’s lazy au pair, assists Mrs. Still in keeping secret her illicit affair with a television actor—in exchange for pocket cash. June, the haughty housekeeper to a princess of dubious origin, tries to enlist her fellow house-helpers into a “society” to address complaints about their employers. Meanwhile, Dex, the disturbed gardener to several families on the block, thinks a voice on his cell phone is giving him godlike instructions—commands that could imperil the lives of all those in Hexam Place.

About Ruth Rendell

Ruth Rendell (1930–2015) won three Edgar Awards, the highest accolade from Mystery Writers of America, as well as four Gold Daggers and a Diamond Dagger for outstanding contribution to the genre from England’s prestigious Crime Writ­ers’ Association. Her remarkable career spanned a half century, with more than sixty books published. A member of the House of Lords, she was one of the great literary figures of our time.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Pam on January 10, 2025

I love Ruth Rendell’s crime stories, particularly those which are not procedurals but rather psychological examinations of the people one might see everywhere but never really know. This book was published in 2012 when she was 83. There are very few writers that have written at this quality, at that......more

Goodreads review by Doreen on November 04, 2015

I’ve been a fan of Ruth Rendell (and Barbara Vine) for many years, and always look forward to another of her books. For the first time, I find myself disappointed. The book is much more a social satire than a mystery. It focuses on relationships among servants and their employers, residents of upsca......more

Goodreads review by Bandit on January 21, 2016

Ruth Rendell had said some unflattering things about Agatha Christie back in the day, all essentially about Christie's characters and their world being too quaint to believably produce and support violence, murder and the like. Well, quaintness is something Rendell's characters and their world can n......more

Goodreads review by Maya on August 12, 2012

There’s something terribly old fashioned about this book: the language, the situations, the characters, even the way the pub seems to be at the centre of everyone’s social life - it all has the feeling of something written in the eighties or earlier, it certainly doesn’t feel like it was written thi......more

Goodreads review by Roger on July 27, 2012

Ruth Rendell is undoubtedly one of the very best crime writers of the past 50 years or so. She writes two sorts of novels. First there are her orthodox crime stories of a whodunit nature. These are usually set in a Sussex market town known as Kingsmarkham and feature a police officer by the name of......more