JOCK Lewis and Jerry Leach died in the Paddington train crash. They must have done, the women in their lives were told as much, so it must be true.

But would the authorities really have informed desperate relatives that their lost loved one was dead in a photocopied, impersonal letter? Probably not, but Minty and Zillah decided - for very, very different reasons - to believe that the letters were true.

They carried on with their lives; Minty slaving away in a dry cleaners and obsessively taking her work home with her, and Zillah entering into a marriage of convenience with a Conservative MP who, until that point in his life, had been a dedicated, life-long bachelor (if you get my drift).

Everything, it seemed, was going swimmingly - until Minty begins seeing the ghost of her late fianc. Then things start to go badly wrong for both women, so badly in fact that people start dying.

This is not a classic whodunit because, quite frankly, you know whodunit from the first flash of the knife and it is not a formulaic detective novel like Rendell's best-selling Inspector Wexford series. It is instead a tautly-woven and highly-entertaining psychological thriller that leaves the reader with many interesting questions to mull as to the nature of guilt and punishment.

The plotting and characterisation are certainly more Barbara Vine (the author's alternate pen-name) than Ruth Rendell, and why this has been published as a Rendell rather than a Vine is beyond me, but it is still scintillating stuff from start to finish.

Whether you love Barbara or Ruth, you'll love Adam And Eve And Pinch Me.