by Ruth Rendell
First published 2000
Alan Groombridge stares at the bank vault each morning, calculating how much money would buy him twelve months of freedom from his suffocating routine. He works the same job, walks the same streets, returns to the same empty house. The fantasy grows stronger each day: take enough cash to disappear for one perfect year, then face whatever consequences await. But Alan never acts on his daydream. When armed robbers storm into his bank, they shatter his quiet world and drag him into violence he never imagined. The crime Alan only dreamed about becomes a brutal reality that traps him in circumstances far worse than the boredom he wanted to escape. Inspector Wexford must unravel a case where the line between victim and criminal blurs, where desperate fantasies collide with desperate acts. Alan discovers that dreaming of escape and living through actual terror are entirely different nightmares.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: crime, desperate-acts, victim-criminal-blur
6 pages · Audio CD · Chivers Sound Library
Content warnings: violence