The Keys to the Street

by Ruth Rendell

London's wealthiest, poorest, kindest, and most vicious citizens all cross paths in Regents Park. Quiet, pretty Mary Jago could never have suspected that a series of unspeakable murders in the park contained threads that tangled around her simple, ordinary life.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Suspense, British Literature

376 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 1996

About the author

A.K.A. Barbara Vine

Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, who also wrote under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, was an acclaimed English crime writer, known for her many psychological thrillers and murder mysteries and above all for Inspector Wexford.

Reviews

[Jill H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am still trying to come to grips with the fact that this book was written by Ruth Rendell. It is a cross between the London Street Guide and a weather report. The plot, what there is of it, is paper thin and never gets started. Absolutely nothing happens until 3/4 of the way through and then it is so weak that I felt like I was missing the point. After looking at some of the other reviews here at GR, I feel better since there was no point to miss. This has to be the worst book Rendell has ever written and I usually like her work. Avoid it like the plague.

[Gary · Rating 1 out of 5]

, Drab boring, meandering and uneventful. Couldn't finish. And I hate not being able to finish books.

[Judith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stuff, complicated stuff.

At the center of this multi-character story is Mary Jago. Mary is a young woman who is having some difficulty getting an abusive boyfriend out of her life entirely. She works at and partly owns an odd tourist attraction: The Irene Adler Museum. Adler was a fictional character in one of the Sherlock Holmes' stories (by Arthur Conan Doyle). The museum offers items from the period, items Adler "might have worn", "might have owned". It has a gift shop with reproductions of originals for sale. As it is located not far from the famous 221b Baker Street (Holmes' supposed residence), it attracts tourists in the area.

Mary moves out of the house she shared with Adrian, against his protests. She moves into a house-sitting job, taking care of a dog and a house while the owners are on a lengthy vacation in other countries. The house is in a nice location and is not far from the Adler museum, making it possible for her to walk to and from work. Unfortunately, Adrian shows up from time to time, expecting her to take him in and for their lives to continue as before, joined.

While Mary is dealing with relationship issues, others are making their lives very differently. Bean is a dogwalker who takes pride in where he lives, a residence willed to him when his wealthy employer died. Among others, Bean walks the dog belonging to the couple that Mary is housesitting for. Bean is ambitious and haughty, rather full of himself and not given to thinking well of others. The dogs put up with him but there is no evidence of any great affection towards him. Bean hatches a scheme to take advantage of his position to find little bits of dirt on his well-off employers and to use it to his advantage.

Roman lives on the streets. He doesn't have to, because he has money tucked away. But after his entire family was killed in a crash, he found no way to cope but to sell everything and take to the streets. He manages to maintain some semblance of an acceptable appearance, but his barrow of goods gives him away. One day when he awakes from inside the gate to the Adler Museum, Mary sees him and says hi to him. From then on, he takes an interest in her, one of the few people who think of the street people as still people. He even begins to feel a little protective of her when he sees an altercation with Adrian.

Then there's Hob. A petty criminal addicted to various substances, he is ripe for any job that can use any of his skills, including beating up various marks. Hob does not seem to have any endearing characteristics, which makes reading about him not much fun for me.

Mary, while still with Adrian, contacted an organization that solicits marrow donations from healthy persons for use in cancer cases. She offered to undergo the donation process for a person who had leukemia and would die without it. Some time after the donation, she learned that the recipient was doing well, and the organization allowed contact between them if she so wished. She did wish, and she arranged to meet him. This encounter led to many others, during which she found herself deeply drawn to the pale, thin person who reminded her very much of herself.

While all these people are going about their businesses, murders are committed. Street people are found hung on the stakes on top of walls. Because of various connections that do not seem connected, between Mary and the other characters, she is indeed connected with at least one of the murders.

Interesting and absorbing reading, complex enough to call for thought.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unusual Rendell. Great characterisations but way too much about the roads around Regent’s Park. The plot revolves around Mary a naive upper middle class woman. She gives bone marrow to a young man to the chagrin of her boyfriend Alistair a complete arsehole. Happily soon to be an ex boyfriend but she goes from the pan into the fire.

A killer is murdering the homeless and impales them on the spikes surrounding houses and Regent Park. Roman is one of the homeless who is trying to come to terms with the death of his wife and children. Mary embarks on an affair with Leo the man she gave her bone marrow too.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Carl pretends to be Leo who dies. Mary inherits her Grandmothers house and two million pounds. Mary discovers Carl is pretending to be his brother. In all of this is Hob a drug addict who beats up people. There is also Bean a dog Walker who is not a nice person. Bean is murdered by Hod but the police realise it is not the Impaler. Bizarrely Cal confronts Mary reveals his identity and then kill’s himself by throwing himself under a lorry. WTF. Yes a bizarre ending but still very readable even with the way too detailed descriptions of Regents Park and the roads surrounding it.

[Kasey Jueds · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this first years ago, and just finished rereading, and loved it as much as I did the first time around. One of my favorite things about this Ruth Rendell: London (where I lived as a teenager) as a character, as much of one as the people (and dogs! another favorite thing) who populate it. She's the only mystery writer I know who can describe a physical place so gorgeously, atmospherically--who can make it real in the same way her characters and situations, even the most far-fetched ones, become real in the context of her books.

[Schoenfelder · Rating 1 out of 5]

Found this book on a bench at a Tube station in London sometime in September 2008. Should have left it there.

It seems like Rendell couldn't decide whether she wanted to write a thriller or a drama. The different sub-plots don't really tie in to form something bigger (apart from a collection of portraits of different people in different walks of life, interspersed with minute details of London street names) and the reveal at the end: un-imaginative?

First time I read a "thriller" (as far as I can remember), maybe the genre is not for me.

[Bionic Jean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow-burning rather drab thriller set around Regent's Park in London.

[Lisa H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was, at the original time of my review, the blurb given for The Keys to the Street here on GoodReads:

For the snobbish, upper-crust that live around London's Regent's Park, the homeless are an eye-sore and a nuisance. Only Mary Jargo, a meek, sensitive young woman who has recently moved into the neighborhood to house-sit shows compassion. She often shares food and conversation with the unfortunates, particularly Effie, Dill, Roman, and Pharaoh. When someone starts murdering members of Regent's homeless community and lancing them on the spiked fencing that encloses the park, only Mary seems to notice or care. Through her quest to discover the murderer, she embarks on a journey to overcome what she perceives to be her own insecurities and passivity.

Really? That's not the book I read, and anyone who relied on that I'm sure discovered the disconnect for themselves. None of it is wholly inaccurate - the book deals with a series of murders of homeless people around Regent's Park, and one of the characters is a mild-mannered young woman who does show some interest in and kindness toward them as she encounters them in the community. But "her quest to discover the murderer" doesn't exist. At no point does Mary Jago (not Jargo) turn into an amateur sleuth to find the murderer. She is only marginally concerned with the crimes (until she is called on to identify one of the bodies) and beyond a reasonable expression of distress over anyone's death, and a certain amount of disquiet at the murders happening near her home, they're only background information - she isn't haunted by them and doesn't display any real fear of becoming a victim, and she certainly doesn't spend enough time thinking about them to discover who's committing them.

Moreover, Mary is only one of several major characters: hers is not the only story being told. There are four characters on whom the book focuses, although Mary's is by far the primary storyline. There's also Roman, a man who is homeless by choice after the deaths of his entire family in a car accident; Bean, a peevish dog-walker with a superiority complex; and Hob, a drug-addicted and mentally slow yobbo who's constantly looking to make some easy money providing services as a frightener/hired muscle, so he can get his next fix.

Once again, I wish I could give this 3.5 stars - I can appreciate Rendell's skill in this thoughtful, well-crafted narrative, but it was an odd read. More than a traditional whodunnit, The Keys to the Street is a morality tale about the ways in which people prey on each other and put their own needs above those of others: the wealthy residents of the neighborhood who overlook the "dossers" that eke out a limited existence on the margins of normal society, even when someone starts killing them; the dealers and other criminals who put Hob onto his next assault-for-hire, knowing he's unstable; Mary's ex-fiance, whose controlling behavior caused her to break off their engagement, and who tries to bully his way back into her life when she inherits a considerable amount of money; even Bean, whose low-level dog-walking job provides him occasion to pick up bits of sensitive information useful for extorting extra money and choice personal references with which to expand his clientele.

The murders are solved, but almost as an afterthought. If you're looking for guilty parties confessing on the witness stand, or forensic fireworks that uncover key evidence, this is not that kind of book.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me, there is only one negative here. I like my psychological fiction relatively short. She did that superbly in A Demon in My View, so in my opinion, at 375 pages this novel is about 150 pages too long. That said, I haven't a clue what might have been cut or how she could have written it differently.

The novel has multiple points of view. In the opening, there is Hob (his initials). He has gotten an advance for roughing up someone and before he does the job he buys some crack. Then, and only then, does he do the job. Next is Mary Jago who is leaving her partner of 3 years to house sit for some friends of her grandmother. They have a lovely shi-tzu who is walked twice daily by Bean. Bean has other dogs he walks, but there is nothing really to like about Bean. Finally, there is a homeless man, Roman Ashton. Roman has been on the streets just a little over a year. Mary first sees him reading Gogol's Dead Souls and thinks of him as Nikolai. There are other characters with whom these four interact - dog owners, homeless, police, and Leo, the man to whom Mary has donated bone marrow.

Obviously, they're not all on the page at the same time. Is it one of these who is murdering homeless men and who will be the next victim? As above, I think Rendell took too long to set the stage, but the last 150 pages were well worth the wait. This is definitely a high 4-star read.

[Hal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read a few dozen of Ruth Rendell's novels, and this is one of her best. I am continually amazed by the seemingly infinite variety of her plots and her penetrating psychological insights. There are not many happy folks in her stories, nor many well adjusted people. She excels at articulating the lives and concerns of the demimonde.

Her novels are rarely straightforward chronological accounts of lives. She goes back and forth, filling in here and there, as though patching a structure until by the final pages we understand not just what has happened but why it has happened.

Her books are shelved in the mystery section, and there are mysteries involved for sure, but I think of her books as novels that just happen to involve a death, usually offscreen.

I cannot think of an author with greater insight in human existence.

[Roz Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised this wasn't a Barbara Vine, but anyway I thoroughly enjoyed it. Fascinating, believable characters, most of them with interesting secrets and grubby grudges. She slips effortlessly between narrative styles to show the different points of view - the book is worth studying for that alone. I found the ending a little weak and abrupt - perhaps convenient. But I'd really enjoyed all the build-up. Definitely reading more of her.

[Dierregi · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the third book I picked from the free exchange shelf and it will probably be the last, because I did not like any. There must be a reasons why books are abandoned and low quality springs immediately to mind.

I heard about Rendell being a famous thriller writer and I thought this could be good holiday reading.

This novel perhaps is not her best, but from the beginning it did annoy me a lot. The description of a specific central London area (around Regent Park, I think) is over-detailed. I lived in London for years, so I had an idea of the place, but people who have never been there may find the geographic details overbearing and useless. Also the overaboundant descriptions of flowers and plants is sort of unnecessary information, unless you are a florist or a keen gardener.

The main characters are not particularly enticing:

1. Mary is a doormat of young woman who needs a man at all costs. She tries to get rid of abusive boyfriend Alastair only to fall for mysterious Leo.
2. Bean is an elderly dog-walker slash blackmailer, who tries to make a fast pound by blackmailing his clients.
3. Roman is posh homeless guy, who dropped his privileged life due to personal tragedy, and
4. Hob is a violent drug addict who hurts people for cash, about whom I cared nothing.

The lives of these people get entangled in a rather implausible plot which takes a lot of pages for the set up and too few for a satisfactory denouement.

Finally, some parts of the plot are deliberately kept obscure, such as who actually is The Beater - I assumed it was Carl, although this is never spelled out. But then again, is difficult if not impossible to imagine the Carl character being soulless and simultaneously caring so much for his brother.

[Bruce Beckham · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m a big fan of Ruth Rendell and this was a correspondingly big let down. I’d like to know the background to the writing of this book – but here are my unadulterated impressions before I look it up.

Paradoxically, it is beautifully written – actually in the florid, whimsical style of alter ego Barbara Vine – and in itself a disappointment, as I quite like the austere, economical prose of a Ruth Rendell suspense novel.

Above this, however, was the lack of a coherent story. It was as if the author spent a couple of weeks wandering about London’s Regent’s Park, observing the locals – mainly down-and-outs and dog walkers – and then picked several of them about whom to write sub-plots. There is no main protagonist.

There are murders, but these appear fairly incidental, and engender little sense of jeopardy; and other threads that seem to peter out, rather than entwine intriguingly. And a good deal of descriptive stuffing, that often had me zoning out of my Audible version, only to ‘come round’ and wonder whom the narrator was talking about.

There is one strand that raised my hopes. A young woman trying to escape an abusive partner donates bone marrow and in due course forms a new relationship with the recipient. There ensues a shocking twist. Frustratingly, this is rather swiftly and meekly resolved.

I had largely lost interest by the final quarter, but to the best of my memory the various sub-plots are somewhat cursorily wrapped up, and the murder investigation reaches its finale with an ending from the “it was all a dream” school of writing.

Most curious.

[Linda Lpp · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has been on my shelf for way too long. Time to change that!
Rendell wove interesting mysteries around social issues in London that very likely continue to exist. Ì don't believe we were ever made aware of the year or time period (I could be wrong). Now I question myself if I read of people doing internet searches. Hmmm? Things we take for granted today.
I think I'm bumbling away with this review, and not making any sense, so I'll bore you no more, and just say. Rendell is a new author for me, but I plan to check out more or her books!

[Rao Javed · Rating 2 out of 5]

A confusing book or something i just didnt get along with. I wanted to stop reading it, but I kept on reading, and I think am glad I ended it.

The text level of the book is very boring and over detailed. The concept of the story was very poor or almost nothing. The story was somewhat good, but only in the end. It if was not over detailed it might've been an enticing story. The characters were also lame and cliched, nothing new. I do feel that there was something in this story that made man like Christopher Nolan write a screenplay on it, but over all the novel was pathetic and boring.

[Bibi Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this for the second time. Aware now of how it plays out, and also of how deeply interested RR is in psychology, I am finding Mary's relationship with Leo fascinating. Her ex-boyfriend, Alistair, is so clearly an abuser that it's possible to miss how Leo is, too, in more subtle ways. I got irritated with Mary after a while. Her uncertainties are true to life, for sure, but that doesn't make for the most dynamic reading. The book is still well worth it though. I especially liked Roman.

[Pat Sh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is what I call a dry-eyes book. As dry as my eyes were getting, I could not make myself stop reading. Rendell is a master of quiet suspense--the tingling feeling that something you cannot quite identify isn't right--but since you can't identify it, you don't entirely trust your instincts. The characters are on the edge of being believable, again just odd enough so you are left uneasy but not doubting their authenticity. A great, take-you-away-from-it-all read.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmmm. I listened to this because I saw a website that said it was Ruth Rendell’s love letter to London and that it was really entrenched in Regency Park.

Having now finished it, I can see why it got such mixed reviews. It’s sort of a mystery, but not in the way that anyone who picks up a Ruth Rendell novel is probably expecting. It’s almost more of a suspenseful fiction story which happens to have a few murders in it. I can see why some normal mystery readers hated this.

I was disappointed in how little it actually described London and Regency Park. It is set there, for sure, and there is a bit of description, but it struck me as more of a description of any urban park; I didn’t feel like tons of it seemed specific to that park in that city.

This ends up being a really interesting novel about abusive relationships with men. That was not even sort of what I was expecting when I picked this. I wouldn’t say it’s bad, at all — it’s more that it wasn’t what I was expecting on any front (not in terms of being a mystery or in terms of being richly set in London).

[Catullus2 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very detailed descriptions of NW London. Murders are secondary to the subplots. Took me a while to figure out the ending. Enjoyed the book though.

[Bookguide · Rating 3 out of 5]

If nothing else, this book will make you aware of railings as never before and have you looking at them in a totally new light. I can’t help but feel that Ruth Rendell must have spent her life observing her surroundings just as obsessively as one of her psychopathic criminals, scoping out a specific way of killing her victims.

Starts off very tiresomely and cryptically with obscure vignettes of characters who will presumably be important. Not to mention tediously long passages about railings and the geography of Regent’s Park, which could have been better achieved with a map. Likewise, towards the end of the book, there is a long description of roads which totally destroys any feeling of suspense that may have been built up, though this is minimal due to constant switching between the perspectives of several different characters and dropping in peculiar references that - in the age of the internet - I cannot help but follow up, but leave me none the wiser. Admittedly, Ruth Rendell wrote this before most people had computers and the internet was rudimentary, but printing a black and white sketch map at the front of the book was perfectly commonplace and would have saved swathes of boring explanations of irrelevant details.

Still, I enjoyed it while reading, but not for the real crime afficionado. One day I will add my full review to my blog, I hope.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Keys to the Street was the first Rendell I read, back in 2004, and I wondered then why it took me so long to discover her. The Keys to the Street is a stand-alone book, rather than one of her Inspector Wexford mysteries, and it stands up quite well to rereading.

The plot is centered around a series of murders of homeless people in London's Regent's Park. Around these events, Rendell weaves the lives of the characters: Mary Jago, a young woman who has recently left an abusive relationship; Leo Nash, the mysterious man to whom she has anonymously donated her bone marrow; Roman Ashton, a homeless man who has chosen to live on the streets after a personal tragedy; Bean, the odd elderly man who works as a dog walker; Hob, the drug addict who beats people up for money; and many others. Rendell writes trenchantly yet elegantly; she sees deeply into her characters, with penetrating insight, and brings seemingly separate lives together into a shocking, yet satisfying conclusion.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thriller by Ruth Rundell. What happens when the lives of some of the rich the poor the homeless around London's Regents Park cross paths? What are the consequences of a person's true heartfelt 'assistance' in a life or death situation? An interesting story of how so many lives are spun into a web of greed, love and death.

Listened to the dramatization of the book on BBC's iPlayer Radio app.

[Jackie Jameson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a very clever book. It’s marketed as a “suspense” novel, and it is; but not in a nail biting, rip through the pages kind of way. The whole book is “quietly” suspenseful, building to a sudden punch in the gut and ending in a very satisfactory tying together of characters and story lines. I like Ruth Rendel for the subtle psychology she weaves the reader in with. Not disappointed, but not my favorite book of hers. “A Fatal Inversion” is her at her absolute best.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-reading one of Rendell's best stand-alones. It could almost be subtitled "Ruth Rendell's Guide to London (some of us wish she'd write such a book, similar to the one she did on Suffolk).

12/22: The darker side of London is examined in this hypnotically-paced novel, which features some of Rendell's strongest characterizations.

[Eugenia Andino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy Ruth Rendell: una historia de vidas cruzadas y gente solitaria, con problemas mentales o de otro tipo, con asesinatos de fondo casi como excusa para generar suspense. No es un esquema clásico de novela negra o de misterio.

[Margie · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the first Rendell books I read. Very much indicative of her style - very rich portrayals of characters, with the mystery being a side note.

[Quirkyreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story was well worth re-reading.

[Bruce · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like most of Rendell's work, but this one never clicked for me. Some good characterizations, but overall tedious and depressing.

[David Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a bit surprised by the many negative peer reviews I see here for this novel; they seem to expect that the subtitle "a novel of suspense" indicates this is a thriller. A thriller this is not. What it is is another excellent example of Ruth Rendell's skill at creating realistic characters from a variety of backgrounds and weaving together their plots lines in interesting and intricate ways. This is some of her best psychological fiction; suspense there is but it is more of a slow-burn variety, until things gear-up toward the end. The feel of this is more like the ones Rendell writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. (Spoiler!) My only beef is that is it turns out the murderer of homeless people (known as The Impaler) is a character who is tangential to the novel overall at best. Normally that would be a serious flaw but it didn't feel that bad in this context; it's as if the point of the homeless murders plot line is more it's effects on the different characters and not the mystery of those murders itself. So really a 4.5 but I'm rounding it up to 5 stars; quite highly recommended.

[Mrs. Read · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wasn’t the first time I’ve read Ruth Rendell’s The Keys to the Street, but it has been a while, so there were parts that caught more of my attention this time, particularly the dog-related vignettes. I particularly enjoyed the dog-walker’s observation, “Pity there was no market for dog pornography,” as I’ve thought that myself many times. And I was amused by the “reasoning” of the intact beagle’s owner who was “hoping for pups some day.*” Rendell fans don’t need to be told that The Keys to the Street is well-written. The plot unfortunately was intrusively implausible, and the behavior of Roman, the main character, was unbelievable from start to finish. Readers looking for a good Rendell book about the intertwining lives of very different people ought to try Adam and Eve and Pinch Me.

*an unspayed female dog regularly allowed to run loose with other intact dogs would be impregnated by one or more of the males the first time she came into estrus, and every time thereafter. There would be lots & lots of mixed-breed pups to find homes for in a “purebred”-centric mileau