The Killing Doll

Pup Yearman, a 16-year-old who lives in a rundown area of London, experiments with magic. Dolly, Pup's older sister, does more than just dabble in magic. Dolly is deformed due to a facial birthmark, and her fixation with Pup's magic takes her on a perilous downhill trajectory into uncertainty, madness, and maybe murder. In the meantime, a young Irishman sharpens a set of butcher knives in a run-down boardinghouse nearby.^[2]

Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called the novel a "stunning piece of work, darkly horrific but also with common sense, with a peculiar and bizarre poetic justice prevailing at the most dramatic, unpredictable ending I can lately remember."^[3] Paul Bailey of the Evening Standard called the novel "excellent" and praised the dialogue.^[4] Seth Williamson of The Roanoke Times wrote that the novel "has a satisfying unexpected ending, though it's not quite as terrifying as some earlier Rendells one could name."^[5]