The Chimney Sweeper's Boy

Book excerpt: The Chimney Sweeper's Boy - a classic crime novel by bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine 'Gripping, almost impossible to put down' Guardian 'One of the most frightening novels I have ever read ... Gerald Candless, the monster at the heart of the maze, is a marvellous creation' Amanda Craig, Express on Sunday When successful author Gerald Candless dies of a sudden heart attack, his eldest, adoring daughter Sarah embarks on a memoir of him and soon discovers that her perfect father was not all he appeared to be. That in fact he wasn't Gerald Candless at all. But then, who was he? And what terrible secret had driven him to live a lie for all those years? 'So ingeniously constructed, its truth and falsehoods are so deftly and convincingly interwoven, that its solution ... is as jolting as a flash of lightning' Sunday Times 'About the power of taboos, transgressions, guilts, deceptions, horrors, atonements, upsets and upheavals ... gripping' Independent If you enjoy the crime novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love The Chimney Sweeper's Boy. Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.