When Stuart Font decides to throw a house-warming party in his new flat, he invites all the people in his building and, after some deliberation, even includes the unpleasant caretaker and his wife. They are a disparate group of people, each with their individual Rendellian psychoses and potential for violence.

There are a few other genuine friends on the list, but he definitely does not want to include his girlfriend, Claudia, as that might involve asking her husband.

The party will be one everyone remembers. But not for the right reasons.

Living opposite, in reclusive isolation, is a beautiful young Asian woman, christened Tigerlily by Stuart. As though from some strange urban fairytale, she emerges to exert a terrible spell on Stuart and his guests. Mr and Mrs Font, the worried parents, will soon have even more cause for concern about their handsome but hopelessly naive son.

Darkly humorous and piercingly observant of human behaviour, Ruth Rendell has created another compelling fable of our lives and crimes.

Ruth Rendell was an exceptional crime writer, and will be remembered as a legend in her own lifetime. Her groundbreaking debut novel,From Doon With Death, was first published in 1964 and introduced the reader to her enduring and popular detective, Inspector Reginald Wexford, who went on to feature in twenty-four of her subsequent novels.

With worldwide sales of approximately 20 million copies, Rendell was a regularSunday Timesbestseller. Her sixty bestselling novels include police procedurals, some of which have been successfully adapted for TV, stand-alone psychological mysteries, and a third strand of crime novels under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. Very much abreast of her times, the Wexford books in particular often engaged with social or political issues close to her heart.

Rendell won numerous awards, including the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger for 1976s best crime novel withA Demon in My View,a Gold Dagger award forLive Fleshin 1986, and theSunday TimesLiterary Award in 1990. In 2013 she was awarded the Crime Writers Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence in crime writing. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.

Ruth Rendell died in May 2015. Her final novel,Dark Corners, is scheduled for publication in October 2015