Thirteen Steps Down Rendell, Ruth

Mix Cellini rents a flat in a decaying London house owned by an old woman who believes she's living in the 1940s. He's obsessed with Reggie Christie, the real-life serial killer who hid bodies in his walls at 10 Rillington Place. When Mix becomes fixated on a beautiful young model who lives nearby, his fantasies spiral into something far darker. Ruth Rendell was a master of psychological suspense, and this is her at her most unsettling — a slow-burn study of delusion, obsession, and how an ordinary man convinces himself that murder might be reasonable. The house itself feels like a character, suffocating and haunted. For fans of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels or anyone who likes their thrillers rooted in the mundane horror of everyday madness.