Adam and Eve and Pinch me by Ruth Rendell.

    Review by:  Linda J.

Title:  Adam and Eve and Pinch me

Author:  Ruth Rendell

Collection:  Adult Fiction

Ruth Rendell is the author of Road Rage, The Keys to the Street, Bloodlines, Simisola, and The Crocodile Bird. She is the winner of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award. She is also the recipient of three Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America and four Gold Daggers from Great Britain’s Crime Writers Association. In 1997, she was named a life peer in the House of Lords. Ruth Rendell also writes mysteries under the name of Barbara Vine, of which A Dark Adapted Eye is the most famous. She lives in England.
Ruth Rendell can create a world where the most unusual characters interact.

In Adam and Eve and Pinch Me we meet Minty Knox, a compulsive clean freak who hears voices and sees ghosts.  She is a spinster who lost her virginity to Jock who has been killed in a train crash.  She realizes her last hope for marriage is gone, but what she really wants is a shower installed in her bathroom.  It will help her be as clean as possible.  Her next door neighbors, Laf and Sonovia, are a Jack Sprat and his wife kind of couple.  They try to help Minty after Jock dies, but secretly they are glad he is gone.  He was not a nice person.  We also meet Zillah Leach, a mother with two children and a no-good husband, Jerry, who has disappeared again, maybe for good this time.  She is determined to escape her poverty, even if it means committing bigamy.  She decides to marry a childhood friend, who just happens to be a rich, gay politician.  It is a marriage of convenience for both parties until everything falls apart.  Then there is Fiona who is supporting her cute boyfriend.  He disappears one day mysteriously, which is strange because he is living high on the hog with Fiona.  Rendell manages to connect these diverse characters in a story that twists and turns until finally justice is served.  Or is it?  Read this book and decide for yourself!