The Keys To The Street by Ruth Rendell

 

Someone is killing the homeless men who inhabit the parks of London.  The men are stabbed and then left displayed impaled on fence posts.  Does someone hate the homeless or are they just easy targets?

Several people are caught up in the events.  Roman has been on the streets for two years ever since the day he got the news his entire family was killed in a car accident.  Although he has money to stay clean, he prefers living outside and totally away from everything that can remind him of his former life when he was a successful book editor.  

Mary has just broken up with her boyfriend Alistair.  He had been getting more demanding and the last straw came when he hit her over a decision she had made.  Mary donated bone marrow to save a young man with leukemia.  Alaistair was furious as he had forbid it, saying it scarred Mary's body, which of course he regarded as his property.  Luckily, some friends of Mary's grandmother were looking for a housesitter for several months while they traveled so she had somewhere to go.

Mary is curious about the man she saved and the medical society that helped with the transplant put them in contact.  Leo is the exact opposite of Alastair.  He is quiet, delicate, tender and he and Mary are so much alike that it seems that they could have been born as one person and separated.  Before long, the pair are in love and planning to marry.  But does the killer have his eye also on Mary?

Ruth Rendell is considered one of the masters of mystery.  Her most famous series is the Inspector Wexford series but this novel is one of her standalones.  The reader will emphasize with Roman who makes himself Mary's protector in the streets and parks surrounding her home and who is starting to see that he might once again have a life as a member of society.  There is mystery surrounding Leo and the denouement will come as a surprise.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.