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So begins this scintillating collection of long and short stories by Ruth Rendell. It was clear to both Wexford and Burden that Tom Peterlee was not killed for £360, but various people would have liked them to think he was. . . It is a case which reminds the Chief Inspector that there is only a thin line dividing the cop from the criminal. In the second story, poetry is the inspiration for murderous passion. In "Shreds and Slivers," the accidental discovery of Amanita phalloides (a poisonous mushroom) leads to a game of Russian Roulette in a supermarket. In all the stories, Ruth Rendell probes behind the patterns of everyday life to pinpoint the frailties, the desires and deceptions, the guilty secrets of human beings.
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