PORTOBELLO

Ruth Rendell (Hutchinson, £18.99)

Ruth Rendell has a split personality. As well as her detective novels, featuring Norfolk’s Inspector Wexford, which often hark back to the cosy, golden age of crime writing, she writes dark, disturbing psychological thrillers under the pen-name Barbara Vine.

Her latest novel —while a little creepy — is neither a safe Wexford tale, nor a gruesome thriller. Readers who have not met this side of Rendell before may well be puzzled by the tone. It is certainly not a cosy story, and I felt an underlying menace was constantly threatening to come to the foreground.

This may be partly because it is set in the Portobello area of West London, rather than in a quiet country town. Rendell paints her beloved London with vibrant colours, but it will undoubtedly be too noisy and edgy for some fans of the Wexford TV series.

The story starts when middle-aged art gallery owner Eugene Wren finds an envelope containing money. For some reason, he decides not to report the matter to the police, but writes a notice and sticks it to a lamppost near his house: “Found in Chepstow Villas, a sum of money between eighty and a hundred and sixty pounds. Anyone who has lost such a sum should apply to the phone number below.”

Several very different characters see the notice, and the plot twists between their stories. There is the hapless Lance, who is remorseful after taking a punch to his girlfriend Gemma, the mother of his child. Lance is our introduction to lowlife, since he has some distinctly unsavoury acquaintances.

Then there is Gemma’s doctor, Ella, who is due to marry Eugene in a few weeks. One of her patients, Joel, seems to be going mad following a near-death experience. He is obsessed with an angel called Mithras, whom he met while he was dead.

The veteran Rendell shows no sign of a diminution of her powers and the loose ends are expertly tied up. There's never a sense that she is losing her way; it’s a professional, well-constructed book. But while the characters provide an engrossing tale, the real star of the story is undoubtedly the London street life.