Adam and Eve and Pinch Me went down to the river to bathe Adam and Eve were drowned. Who was saved? This old nursery rhyme is a favourite of Jerry Leach (if that is the name he is using at the time), a handsome neer do well, who sponges off women. Five women, unknown to each other, are his willing victims. One he even married once and abandoned, while promising to marry another. But, with the cruel irony he would be the first to recognize in that nursery rhyme, Jerry, almost accidentally, becomes the victim of one of his female prey. Minty Knox sees ghosts. And because this is Rendell territory, we know this will not be a supernatural thriller but rather an exploration of what happens when personal delusions collide with reality-With her usual deft touch, Ruth Rendell pulls the strands of her story together, weaving a taut and terrifying narrative which reminds us that nothing we do is without consequence, nor are those consequences ever within our control. Val McDermid, Daily Express