Ric Jerrom

When Carl sells a box of slimming pills to his close friend Stacey, inadvertently causing her death, he sets in train a sequence of catastrophic events which begin with subterfuge, extend to lies and culminate in murder. In Rendell's dark and atmospheric tale of psychological suspense, we encounter mistaken identity, kidnap, blackmail and a cast of characters who are so real that we come to know them better than we know ourselves.

Master and Commander establishes the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey RN and Stephen Maturin, who becomes his secretive ship?s surgeon and an intelligence agent. It displays the qualities which have put O?Brian far ahead of any of his competitors: his depiction of the detail of life aboard an early 19th-century man-of-war, of weapons, food, conversation and ambience, of the landscape and of the sea. O?Brian?s portrayal of each of these is faultless,...