A Painted Devil

He was young, arrogant, wealthy and in the bloom of health—or was he? “Undoubtedly one of the best writers of English mysteries and chiller-killer plots.”—The Los Angeles Times Like any small community, Linchester has its intrigues: love affairs, money problems, unhappy marriages. But the gossip is elevated to new heights when young Patrick Selby dies on the very night of his beautiful wife’s birthday party. The whole neighborhood was there, witness to the horrible attack of wasp stings Patrick suffered at the end of the evening. But did Patrick die of a wasp sting? Dr. Greenleaf thinks not. Heart failure, more likely. Still, Greenleaf isn’t at peace about his death. After all, everyone in Linchester hated Patrick. With the help of a certain naturalist, Dr. Greenleaf begins to think about murder. . . . “Rendell is awfully good.”—The New York Times Book Review

This is a unique and enlightened insight into mental illness. This book has taken the author over two decades to write. A must-read for all interested in not just the working of the human brain but also its breakdown. This is an exciting new work that uses the latest ideas of the functioning of the human brain to tell a dark but true story of its dysfunction. This is his first novel,his first work of fiction.

A visit from strange Aunt Emily invokes in Alice a foreboding sense of evil, as they find connections between the local library's collection of old puppets and a sinister magic show that took place twenty-eight years earlier.