A Demon in My View

1976 novel by Ruth Rendell

For the Amelia Atwater-Rhodes novel, see Demon in My View.

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A Demon in My View

First edition cover (UK)

Author| Ruth Rendell
Language| English
Genre| Crime, Mystery Novel
Publisher| Hutchinson (UK)
Doubleday (US)

Publication date

| 3 May 1976
Publication place| United Kingdom
Media type| Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages| 184 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN| 0-09-126100-7 (first edition, hardback)
OCLC| 2895691

Dewey Decimal

| 823/.9/14
LC Class| PZ4.R4132 De PR6068.E63

A Demon in My View [1] is a novel by British author Ruth Rendell. First published in 1976, it won the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year, gaining Rendell the first of six Dagger awards she received during her career, more than any other writer.

## Synopsis

[edit]

A rigid man of fifty leads a solitary, apparently respectable life, as clerk and bookkeeper for a small business and part-time rent collector for his landlord. He has rented a flat in the building for twenty years because deep in its cellar, unbeknownst to anyone else, is a mannequin that he periodically "strangles" in order to satisfy his homicidal urges. The figure's location in the cellar, the darkness, the furtiveness, all are essential to the solitary man's satisfaction. The tenuous mental equilibrium he has been able to maintain is threatened when a young man, healthy in mind and body, a doctoral candidate in psychology, who has the same name, becomes a roomer in the house. Danger the older man senses from the moment the new tenant appears is horribly realized for him when children use the mannequin as the figure in the bonfire at the Guy Fawkes Night celebration. The respectable fifty-year-old now must go back to the streets to find flesh more yielding than a mannequin's...

## Themes

[edit]

Apart from its narrative momentum, as the lives of a disparate collection of lodgers in a down-at-heel rooming house fatally intertwine and unravel, the novel perceptively and accurately depicts "Kenbourne Vale" a fictional North West London suburb, during the 1970s public services strikes, with a shifting population, old terraced houses being demolished or cropped up into cheap rental warrens, grimy waste-ground and car-parks, Council housing estates, pretentiously named streets, cheap corner shops and kebab houses. It's a world of self-service launderettes, overflowing dustbins and neglected amenities. The novel is full of cool observation and irony, touching on sexism, feminism and racism (key social themes of the 1970s). The major irony is that an aggressively normal research graduate is writing a thesis on criminal psychopathy, sharing his surname and lodgings with a repressed psychopath; and his innocent, well-meant action forces the strangler out onto the streets in search of real victims again.

The novel also explores the nature of sexual love, obsession, and marital infidelity. The psychopath's sexual inadequacy and homicidal urges are shown to be the result of a loveless, repressed upbringing by a maiden aunt. The research writer is engaged in a passionate affair with a married woman and is allowing her a period of separation to decide whether or not to leave her husband for him. The lodging house also contains a series of individuals or couples engaged in ironically paralleled marital, sexual and social relationships that often appear exploitative, inadequate or shabby. By contrast, the researcher and his lover, and a couple of his Caribbean friends, come together during the book, in relationships that offer a positive alternative to the general dysfunction of the other characters' relationships and values.

All these skilfully interwoven strands come together, with explosive results, in Ruth Rendell's brilliantly characteristic trademark manner.

## Film version

[edit]

The novel was made into a film, also titled A Demon in My View [fr], in 1991. It starred Anthony Perkins and was also set in London. The film, directed by Petra Haffter [de], won the Special Jury Prize at the 3rd Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival in February 1992.[2]

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ Rendell, Ruth. "A demon in my view" Hardback, 182 pages. (1976). ISBN 0-385-121105. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 76-9486.
2. ^ "YUBARI INTERNATIONAL FANTASTIC ADVENTURE FILM FESTIVAL'92". yubarifanta.com. Archived from the original on 7 April 2004. Retrieved 19 September 2009.

* v
* t
* e

Gold Dagger Award

1955–1959|

* The Little Walls by Winston Graham (1955)
* The Second Man by Edward Grierson (1956)
* The Colour of Murder by Julian Symons (1957)
* Someone from the Past by Margot Bennett (1958)
* Passage of Arms by Eric Ambler (1959)

1960–1969|

* The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson (1960)
* The Spoilt Kill by Mary Kelly (1961)
* When I Grow Rich by Joan Fleming (1962)
* The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré (1963)
* The Perfect Murder by H. R. F. Keating (1964)
* The Far Side of the Dollar by Ross Macdonald (1965)
* A Long Way to Shiloh by Lionel Davidson (1966)
* Murder Against the Grain by Emma Lathen (1967)
* Skin Deep by Peter Dickinson (1968)
* A Pride of Heroes by Peter Dickinson (1969)

1970–1979|

* Young Man I Think You're Dying by Joan Fleming (1970)
* The Steam Pig by James H. McClure (1971)
* The Levanter by Eric Ambler (1972)
* The Defection of A. J. Lewinter by Robert Littell (1973)
* Other Paths to Glory by Anthony Price (1974)
* The Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer (1975)
* A Demon in My View by Ruth Rendell (1976)
* The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré (1977)
* The Chelsea Murders by Lionel Davidson (1978)
* Whip Hand by Dick Francis (1979)

1980–1989|

* The Murder of the Maharaja by H. R. F. Keating (1980)
* Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith (1981)
* The False Inspector Dew by Peter Lovesey (1982)
* Accidental Crimes by John Hutton (1983)
* The Twelfth Juror by B. M. Gill (1984)
* Monkey Puzzle by Paula Gosling (1985)
* Live Flesh by Ruth Rendell (1986)
* A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine (1987)
* Ratking by Michael Dibdin (1988)
* The Wench Is Dead by Colin Dexter (1989)

1990–1999|

* Bones and Silence by Reginald Hill (1990)
* King Solomon's Carpet by Barbara Vine (1991)
* The Way Through the Woods by Colin Dexter (1992)
* Cruel and Unusual by Patricia Cornwell (1993)
* The Scold's Bridle by Minette Walters (1994)
* The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid (1995)
* Popcorn by Ben Elton (1996)
* Black & Blue by Ian Rankin (1997)
* Sunset Limited by James Lee Burke (1998)
* A Small Death in Lisbon by Robert Wilson (1999)

2000–2009|

* Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem (2000)
* Sidetracked by Henning Mankell (2001)
* The Athenian Murders by José Carlos Somoza (2002)
* Fox Evil by Minette Walters (2003)
* Blacklist by Sara Paretsky (2004)
* Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indriðason (2005)
* Raven Black by Ann Cleeves (2006)
* The Broken Shore by Peter Temple (2007)
* Blood from Stone by Frances Fyfield (2008)
* A Whispered Name by William Brodrick (2009)

2010–2019|

* Blacklands by Belinda Bauer (2010)
* Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (2011)
* The Rage by Gene Kerrigan (2012)
* Dead Lions by Mick Herron (2013)
* This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash (2014)
* Life or Death by Michael Robotham (2015)
* Dodgers by Bill Beverly (2016)
* The Dry by Jane Harper (2017)
* The Liar by Steve Cavanagh (2018)
* The Puppet Show by M. W. Craven (2019)

2020–present|

* Good Girl Bad Girl by Michael Robotham (2020)
* We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker (2021)
* Sunset Swing by Ray Celestin (2022)
* The Kingdoms of Savannah by George Dawes Green (2023)
* Tell Me What I Am by Una Mannion (2024)

* v
* t
* e

Ruth Rendell

Inspector Wexford novels|

* From Doon with Death
* A New Lease of Death
* Wolf to the Slaughter
* The Best Man to Die
* A Guilty Thing Surprised
* No More Dying Then
* Murder Being Once Done
* Some Lie and Some Die
* Shake Hands Forever
* A Sleeping Life
* Put on By Cunning
* The Speaker of Mandarin
* An Unkindness of Ravens
* The Veiled One
* Kissing the Gunner's Daughter
* Simisola
* Road Rage
* Harm Done
* The Babes in the Wood
* End in Tears
* Not in the Flesh
* The Monster in the Box
* The Vault
* No Man's Nightingale

Stand-alone novels|

* To Fear a Painted Devil
* Vanity Dies Hard
* The Secret House of Death
* One Across, Two Down
* The Face of Trespass
* A Demon in My View
* A Judgement in Stone
* Make Death Love Me
* The Lake of Darkness
* Master of the Moor
* The Killing Doll
* The Tree of Hands
* Live Flesh
* Heartstones
* Talking to Strange Men
* The Bridesmaid
* Going Wrong
* The Crocodile Bird
* The Keys to the Street
* A Sight for Sore Eyes
* Adam and Eve and Pinch Me
* The Rottweiler
* Thirteen Steps Down
* The Thief
* The Water's Lovely
* Portobello
* Tigerlily's Orchids
* The Saint Zita Society
* The Girl Next Door
* Dark Corners

As Barbara Vine|

* A Dark-Adapted Eye
* A Fatal Inversion
* The House of Stairs
* Gallowglass
* King Solomon's Carpet
* Asta's Book
* No Night is Too Long
* The Brimstone Wedding
* The Chimney Sweeper's Boy
* Grasshopper
* The Blood Doctor
* The Minotaur
* The Birthday Present
* The Child's Child

Short story collections|

* The Fallen Curtain
* Means of Evil
* The Fever Tree
* The New Girlfriend
* The Copper Peacock
* Blood Lines
* Piranha to Scurfy
* A Spot of Folly

TV series|

* The Ruth Rendell Mysteries
* The Barbara Vine Mysteries

*[OCLC]: Online Computer Library Center number
*[LC Class]: Library of Congress Classification
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