Monday 9 December 2013

Ruth Rendell - The Saint Zita Society



Ruth Rendell – The Saint Zita Society

Ruth Rendell has long been a favourite author of mine. Her bottom-up approach to life, which often explains crime without condoning it, provides unique insight into human frailties, dilemmas and anomalies. Her sympathies often lie with the underdog and those who are the losers and victims in life, without simplistic blaming of society and the winners.

Saint Zita is the patron saint of maids and domestic servants, so you can be sure this book deals with some very down-to-earth characters.

In The Saint Zita Society, she brings together a diverse but convincing crew of human beings, lords, ladies, a self-proclaimed princess and ragged bunch of servants – an au-pair, a nanny, a cleaner, housekeepers, drivers, a gardener, and even a non-servant who perhaps serves more and better than the rest, with little thanks.

She creates a microscopic corner of modern London – Hexham Place - that brings Downton Abbey into the twenty-first century. Indeed, one of the servants is descended from a footman to a duke. But these are modern servants and servility is not a feature!

Rendell is a mistress of subtle, interweaving plotting that leaves the reader poised over precipices of looming catastrophe. Bliss!

The characters are several disasters waiting to happen, while random events, neglect, pure misfortune and coincidence spur on the calamities. Egos compete with selfishness to bring characters undone while Rendell also explores how the lingering British class system still acts to preserve the guilty from the consequences of their deeds.

I also love the way she uses technology to explore new methods of tormenting disturbed minds, with tragic consequences.

Never ignore basic household maintenance again – the consequences could be tragic!

David Kilner