Ruth Rendell: The Bridesmaid (USA 1990)

From the Publisher:
Philip Wardman is an ordinary young man, quiet and good looking, working at an ordinary job, living in an ordinary suburb of London. His one eccentricity is a neurotic fear of violence and death.

His ideal of beauty is a statue of a minor Greek goddess, Flora, which stands in his widowed mother's garden.
At a wedding Philip encounters the living incarnation of the marble Flora: Senta Pelham, a lovely, ethereal actress of bohemian tastes. She comes to him that night, coolly informing him that he is the man she has been seeking all her life. A strange and passionate love affair begins.

But darker forces soon intrude. Unlike Philip, Senta is fascinated with death; her disdain for humanity leads her to propose an evil game: Philip must prove his love for her - by committing murder...

"The Bridesmaid is vintage Rendell."
-- Scott Turow
"The Bridesmaid is Ruth Rendell at her finest."
-- Jonathan Kellerman
"The Bridesmaid is a masterpiece."
-- Tony Hillerman

Ruth Rendell: The Bridesmaid. The Mysterious Press, ISBN: 0445409126 (July, 1990), 294 p., $4.95.

Ruth Rendell: The Bridesmaid (UK 1990)

From the Publisher:
A crime novel written by the author of "From Doon with Death". Ruth Rendell received three Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America and won the Crime Writers' Gold Dagger Award for 1976's best novel - "A Demon In My View" - and the Gold Dagger Award for "A Fatal Inversion".

Ruth Rendell: The Bridesmaid. Arrow, ISBN: 0099681803 (April, 1990), 297 p., £5.99

Ruth Rendell: The Bridesmaid (USA 1989)

From the Publisher:
The Boston Globe has called Ruth Rendell "the best mystery writer anywhere in the English-speaking world." Her imaginative and chilling fiction has earned her three Edgar Allan Poe Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, two Gold Daggers and a Silver Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers Association, and a special National Book Award from the Arts Council of Great Britain. THE BRIDESMAID may be her finest work of psychological suspense to date.

Philip Wardman is an ordinary young man, quiet and good looking, working at an ordinary job, living in an ordinary suburb of London. His one eccentricity is his neurotic fear of violence and death; his ideal of beauty is a statue of a minor Greek goddess, Flora, which stands in his widowed mother's garden. When she gives it away to a friend he impulsively and surreptitiously retrieves it, at the risk of arrest.

At his sister's wedding Philip encounters the living incarnation of the marble Flora: Senta Pelham, a lovely, ethereal actress who disregards conventional morality. She comes to him that night, coolly informing him that he is the man she has been seeking all her life. A strange and passionate love affair begins.

But darker forces soon intrude. Unlike Philip, Senta is fascinated with death; her disdain for the common run of humanity leads her to propose an evil game: Philip must prove his love for her -- by committing murder...

Ruth Rendell's previous novel was The Veiled One, which the New York Times called "equally notable for subtle psychological tension and sharp social observation." The author lives with her husband in Suffolk, England.

Ruth Rendell: The Bridesmaid. A Novel of Suspense. The Mysterious Press, ISBN: 0892963883 (July, 1989), 259 p., $17.95.