Ruth Rendell is widely considered to be crime fiction's reigning queen. In Portobello, she delivers a captivating and intricate tale that weaves together the troubled lives of several people in the gentrified neighborhood of London's Notting Hill.

Walking to the shops one day, fifty-year-old Eugene Wren discovers an envelope on the street bulging with cash. A man plagued by a shameful addiction-and his own good intentions-Wren hatches a plan to find the money's rightful owner. Instead of going to the police, or taking the cash for himself, he prints a notice and posts it around Portobello Road. This ill-conceived act creates a chain of events that links Wren to other Londoners-people afflicted with their own obsessions and despairs. As these volatile characters come into Wren's life-and the life of his trusting fiancée-the consequences will change them all.

Portobello is a wonderfully complex tour de force featuring a dazzling depiction of one of London's most intriguing neighborhoods-and the dangers beneath its newly posh veneer.