King Solomon's Carpet

King Solomon's Carpet (1991) is a novel by Barbara Vine, pseudonym of Ruth Rendell. It is about the London Underground and the people frequenting it. Vine's novel is inhabited by ordinary passengers, tube aficionados, pickpockets, buskers, vigilantes, and children who go "sledging" on the roofs of train carriages as an initiation rite. The title of the book refers to the legend of King Solomon's magic carpet of green silk which, as it could fly and brought everyone to their destination, is likened to the underground. King Solomon's Carpet is one of the few novels set in London which should be read with the help of a tube map. It won the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year in 1991.