On this page

This page lists novels, short story collections and non-fiction by Ruth Rendell.

Ruth Rendell published some novels using the pseudonym Barbara Vine. These novels are listed on this page but also listed separately on the Barbara Vine page.

Some of the novels listed have been published a number of times. The cover images shown are, where possible, the first UK edition and a recent mass market paperback edition.

- novels / short story collections
- Barbara Vine novels
- omnibus editions
- non-fiction

From Doon with Death

Ruth Rendell

1964

An Inspector Wexford novel

"The trampled grass led to the body of Margaret Parsons. With no useful clues and a victim known only for her mundane life, Chief Inspector Wexford is baffled until he discovers Margaret's dark secret - a collection of rare books, each inscribed from a secret lover and signed only as 'Doon'. Who is Doon? And could the answer hold the key to Wexford solving his first case?"

To Fear a Painted Devil

Ruth Rendell

1965

"Like any small community, Linchester has its intrigues: love affairs, money problems, unhappy marriages. But the gossip is elevated to new heights when young Patrick Selby dies on the very night of his beautiful wife's birthday party. The whole neighbourhood was there, witness to the horrible attack of wasp stings Patrick suffered at the end of the evening. But did Patrick die of a wasp sting? Dr. Greenleaf thinks not. Heart failure, more likely. Still, Greenleaf isn't at peace about his death. After all, everyone in Linchester hated Patrick. With the help of a certain naturalist, Dr. Greenleaf begins to think about murder."

Vanity Dies Hard

Ruth Rendell

1965

"Alice Whittaker was 37, rich but dowdy, with no career. Her life a lonely failure, she had got by with the one thing she did have - money. Then handsome Andrew Fielding came into her life, and just as suddenly her beautiful friend, Nesta, vanished from it - leaving a trail of confusing clues."

A New Lease of Death

Ruth Rendell

1967

An Inspector Wexford novel

"It's impossible to forget the violent bludgeoning to death of an elderly lady in her home. Even more so when it's your first murder case. Wexford believed he'd solved Mrs Primero's murder fifteen years ago. It was no real mystery. Everyone knew Painter, her odd-job man, had done it. There had never been any doubt in anyone's mind. Until now... Henry Archery's son is engaged to Painter's daughter. Only Archery can't let the past remain buried. He wants to prove Wexford wrong, and in probing into the lives of the witnesses questioned all those years ago, he stirs up more than old ghosts."

Wolf to the Slaughter

Ruth Rendell

1967

An Inspector Wexford novel

"Anita Margolis has vanished. Dark and exquisite, Anita's character is as mysterious as her disappearance. There was no body, no crime - nothing more concrete than an anonymous letter and the intriguing name of Smith. According to headquarters, it wasn't to be considered a murder enquiry at all. With the letter providing them with only one questionable lead to follow, Wexford and his sidekick Inspector Burden are compelled to make enquiries. They soon discover Anita is wealthy, flighty, and thoroughly immoral. The straight-laced Burden has a very clear idea of what happened to her. But Wexford has his own suspicions."

The Secret House of Death

Ruth Rendell

1968

"It was his third visit to the gloomy house on Orchard Drive. Each time, he parked in the same place. Each time, he carried a briefcase. And each time, Louise North greeted him at the door. Susan Townsend was the only resident with no interest in the affair going on next door, or in the neighbourhood gossip about it. Yet it was Susan who found the murdered bodies of the lovers, locked not in passion, but in death. And it was Susan whose own life would be imperilled by a monstrous crime far beyond the imaginings of the vilest gossiping tongues."

The Best Man to Die

Ruth Rendell

1969

An Inspector Wexford novel

"A man and his daughter lie dead after a car accident. Strangely, no other car was involved and no cause has been found. Wexford's only option is to wait and hope that the one surviving victim - the mother, Mrs Fanshawe - regains consciousness. But when she finally awakens six weeks later, Wexford's attention has already been distracted by a new and very violent case. Walking by the canal that same morning, Wexford discovered the bloody body of Charlie Hatton. The two cases are obviously unrelated, although something is bothering Wexford and he can't work out why or what. But just as he begins to wonder whether there could in fact be a connection, the unexpected occurs: the Fanshawe daughter, believed to be killed in the accident, appears at her mother's beside very much alive."

A Guilty Thing Surprised

Ruth Rendell

1970

An Inspector Wexford novel

"The discovery of Elizabeth Nightingale's broken body in the woods near her home could not have come as a bigger shock. Called in to investigate, Chief Inspector Wexford quickly determines that the Nightingales were considered the perfect couple - wealthy, attractive and without an enemy in the world. However, someone must have been alone with Elizabeth that night in the woods. Someone who hated - or perhaps loved - her enough to beat her to death. The case seems straightforward. But Wexford soon learns that beneath the placid surface of the Nightingales' lives lie undercurrents and secrets no one ever suspected."

No More Dying Then

Ruth Rendell

1971

An Inspector Wexford novel

"On a stormy February afternoon, little Stella Rivers disappears - never to be seen again. There were no clues, no demands and no traces. And there was nowhere else for Wexford and his team to look. All that remained was the cold fear and awful dread that touched everyone in Kingsmarkham. Just months later, another child vanishes - five-year-old John Lawrence. Wexford and Inspector Burden are launched into another investigation and, all too quickly, they discover chilling similarities to the Stella Rivers case. Then the letters begin. The horrifying, evil, threatening letters of a madman. And suddenly Wexford is fighting against time to find the missing boy, before he meets the same fate as poor Stella."

One Across, Two Down

Ruth Rendell

1971

"There are only two things in life that interest Stanley: solving crossword puzzles, and getting his hands on his mother-in-law's money. For twenty years, nearly all his adult life, the puzzles have been his only pleasure; his mother-in-law's money his only dream. And in all those years it has never once occurred to Stanley that she would try to outsmart him and the money might never be his. Until now. It is only now that Stanley, so clever at misleading double-meanings and devious clues, decides to construct a puzzle of his own - and so give death a helping hand."

Murder Being Once Done

Ruth Rendell

1972

An Inspector Wexford novel

"It seems fitting that the final resting place of a girl's body should be in a graveyard. But this is no peaceful burial. This is a brutal murder scene. Under strict orders from his doctor to indulge in no criminal investigation, Wexford is sent to London for a break away from the pressures of the Kingsmarkham police force. But then he discovers that his nephew Howard is heading the investigation into the macabre murder of Loveday Morgan, whose body was found abandoned in Kenbourne Cemetery. Despite opposition from Howard and his team, Wexford is drawn to the case. And when he unearths Loveday's connection to a religious cult whose leader was imprisoned for sexual absue, he relentlessly pursues this sinister new lead."

Some Lie and Some Die

Ruth Rendell

1973

An Inspector Wexford novel

"When the body of a brutally beaten girl is found in a quarry during a hedonistic hippy festival near Kingsmarkham, Wexford is first on the scene. The victim's face has been pulped by the back-end of a bottle, but who, in this atmosphere of peace and love, could be capable of such violence? The body is that of local girl turned stripper Dawn Stonor, but it is the unlikely link between this ill-fated girl and the mysterious folk-singer Zeno Vedast that piques Wexford's interest. Through an intricate web of lies and deceit, Wexford uncovers a history of love and hate that began years earlier. In all his years of police work, he has never been faced with a crime of such desperate passion."

The Face of Trespass

Ruth Rendell

1974

"Two years ago he had been a promising young novelist. Now he survived - you could hardly call it living - in a near derelict cottage with only an unhooked telephone and his own obsessive thoughts for company. Two years of loving Drusilla - the bored, rich, unstable girl with everything she needed, and a husband she wanted dead. The affair was over. But the long slide into deception and violence had just begun."

Shake Hands Forever

Ruth Rendell

1975

An Inspector Wexford novel

"Angela Hathall is found strangled in her bed but, shockingly, the murder of this meek and solitary woman sparks little emotion from her husband. Called in to investigate, Wexford's curiosity only deepens when he discovers that the Hathall household has been meticulously cleaned but for a single distinctive palm print. As the case develops Wexford is increasingly frustrated by the seemingly pointless nature of the murder. There is no motive, no weapon and no suspect. Nothing except the unidentified print. But despite the sparse evidence, Wexford is convinced Hathall is hiding something. So when Wexford is taken off the case he decides to take matters into his own hands."

A Demon in My View

Ruth Rendell

1976

"Arthur Johnson doesn't look like a murderous psychopath; he is a mild-mannered man who has never known how to talk to women. Years of loneliness has warped his mind, turning his desire for a woman's love and respect into a pathological need for carefully controlled violence. Locked in the cellar of his building is the perfect willing victim, a woman who can be murdered over and over again, a woman who waits for Arthur every night... When a young scholar of psychopathic personalities moves in downstairs and Arthur's mannequin disappears, where will he turn to satisfy his urgent craving for violence?"

The Fallen Curtain And Other Stories

Ruth Rendell

1976

"A collection of Ruth Rendell psychologically chilling murder mysteries. A wife plots her husband's psychological destruction - then his murder; a son is ruined by his mother's obsession; a man marries the woman he rescues from suicide, only to become the victim of her obsessiveness; and a family feud brings unimaginable horror."

• The Fallen Curtain
• People Don't Do Such Things
• A Bad Heart
• You Can't Be Too Careful
• The Double
• The Venus Fly Trap
• The Clinging Woman
• The Vinegar Mother
• The Fall Of A Coin
• Almost Human
• Divided We Stand

A Judgement in Stone

Ruth Rendell

1977

"Four members of the Coverdale family - George, Jacqueline, Melinda and Giles - died in the space of fifteen minutes on the 14th February, St Valentine's Day. Eunice Parchman, the housekeeper, shot them down on a Sunday evening while they were watching opera on television. Two weeks later she was arrested for the crime. But the tragedy neither began nor ended there."

Make Death Love Me

Ruth Rendell

1979

"Alan Groombridge is trapped. Husband to a woman he doesn't like, father to two children he never wanted, and manager of a tiny branch of the Anglian-Victoria bank, he is doomed to a life of domestic boredom and tedious routine. All that keeps him afloat is his one fantasy: stealing enough of the bank's money to allow him just one year of freedom - one year in which to live a different sort of life. But one day the bank is robbed, the manager and cashier disappear and what was once a place of dull and dreary repetition becomes the scene of a brutal, chilling nightmare that might never end."

A Sleeping Life

Ruth Rendell

1979

An Inspector Wexford novel

"On a sultry August evening, the bloody body of a middle-aged woman is discovered beneath a hedge by a small boy. There are only two things that surprise Wexford about the murder scene. One, that the only contents of the woman's handbag are some keys and a wallet containing nothing but some money. And two, how even in death, her deathly grey eyes possess a scornful glare. The woman turns out to be Rhoda Comfrey, but there's no murder weapon, no apparent motive, and no one who actually cares that she died. Wexford's only hunch is that the clues to her murder must lie in her solitary London life. But her existence there becomes frustratingly impossible to trace."

Means of Evil and Other Stories

Ruth Rendell

1979

Inspector Wexford stories

A collection of five stories. The contents are:

• Means of Evil
• Old Wives Tales
• Ginger and the Kingsmarkham Chalk Circle
• Achilles Heel
• When the Wedding Was Over

The Lake of Darkness

Ruth Rendell

1980

"Martin Urban wins the pools and decides to help those less fortunate. Finn also comes into money and wants to help people - but only if the price is right. The good intentions of the one become fatally entangled with the macabre madness of the other."

Put on by Cunning

Ruth Rendell

1981

An Inspector Wexford novel

"Sir Manuel Camargue, Kingsmarkham's very own celebrity flautist, dies tragically on a snowy night. His death is met with a ruling of misadventure and appears to be an open-and-shut-case. However Wexford, as the investigating officer, has a few niggling doubts. Nineteen years later, Camargue's entrancing daughter, Natalie, now a considerable heiress, suddenly reappears in Kingsmarkham. When her fiancé appeals to Wexford for help, believing that Natalie is using a false identity, the case of the Camargues is once more under investigation. Events soon take a gruesome twist and the pressure is on for Wexford to discover Natalie's true identity and to solve the mystery of the Camargue family, once and for all."

Master of the Moor

Ruth Rendell

1982

"Stephen Whalby loves to walk the moor. It is a dark and forbidding place, but it is his. When the body of a young blonde woman is found there, her face horrifically disfigured, the victim of a merciless murderer, his beloved moor is tainted with suspicion and terror. Then a second woman goes missing on the moor and Stephen watches as the search party make their way across the treacherous murder scene. Not to be usurped by a killer or a victim; he, and only he, is the master of the moor."

The Fever Tree And Other Stories

Ruth Rendell

1982

"In this collection of eleven stories, murder is committed out of fear, jealously, cupidity, and also sheer compulsion, while the settings include an African game park, a sinister ruined cemetery, an East Anglian seaside resort, and the gloomy purlieus of Epping Forest."

• The Fever Tree
• The Dreadful Day Of Judgement
• A Glowing Future
• An Outside Interest
• A Case Of Coincidence
• Thornapple
• May And June
• A Needle For The Devil
• Front Seat
• Paintbox Place
• The Wrong Category

The Speaker of Mandarin

Ruth Rendell

1983

An Inspector Wexford novel

"Wherever Reggie Wexford goes, death and intrigue are close on his heels. Having just returned from a once-in-a-lifetime holiday in China, Wexford finds himself haunted by memories of the old woman with bound feet who mysteriously followed him from one city to the next and the man who tragically drowned. Now, back in England, he finds himself investigating the murder of a fellow tourist. Knowing that the clue to these three mysteries lies in the East, Wexford turns his investigative skills to that place of unfathomable and sinister depths."

The Killing Doll

Ruth Rendell

1984

"Pup's older sister, Dolly, is manically obsessed with her birthmark, believing it is responsible for her status as a social outcast. She becomes pathologically transfixed by Pup's dabbling in magic, desperate to believe he has occult powers that can cure her disfigurement, improve their lives, and kill their stepmother. As Dolly's obsession grows, a young mentally disturbed Irishman lurks just around the corner, inseparable from his sharpened set of knives... In this intense and deeply disturbing novel, Ruth Rendell explores a haunted world of obsession, delusions and murderous fantasy, with dazzling virtuosity."

The Tree of Hands

Ruth Rendell

1984

"Once when Benet was about fourteen she and her mother had been alone in a train carriage - and Mopsa had tried to stab her with a carving knife. It was some time since Benet had seen her psychologically disturbed mother. So when Mopsa arrived at the airport looking drab and colourless in a dowdy grey suit, Benet tried not to hate her. But then the tragic death of a child begins a chain of deception, kidnap and murder in which three women are pushed to their psychological limit."

An Unkindness of Ravens

Ruth Rendell

1985

An Inspector Wexford novel

"The raven: not a particularly predatory bird, but far from soft and submissive, adopted as the symbol of a militant feminist group... Detective Chief Inspector Wexford thought he was merely doing a neighbourly good deed when he agreed to talk to Joy Williams about her missing husband. He certainly didn't expect to be investigating a most unusual homicide. Rodney Williams was neither handsome nor wealthy – but he had an unerring eye for a pretty girl and when he disappeared and two other men were later attacked by a young woman, Wexford couldn't help wondering if there was a connection. If there wasn't, where was Rodney Williams and why had he vanished? He had committed no crime – apart from telling his wife the occasional lie."

The New Girl Friend And Other Stories

Ruth Rendell

1985

"Murder, corruption, blackmail. All these are part of someone else's world, not part of the everyday lives of ordinary people...or are they? This is a collection of sinister stories from the bestselling author who won The Sunday Times Literary Award for 1990."

• The New Girl Friend
• A Dark Blue Perfume
• The Orchard Walls
• Hare's House
• Bribery And Corruption
• The Whistler
• The Convolvulus Clock
• Loopy
• Fen Hall
• Father's Day
• The Green Road To Quephanda

Live Flesh

Ruth Rendell

1986

"After ten years in prison for shooting - and permanently crippling - a young policeman, Victor Jenner is released to a strange new world and told to make a new life for himself. It's hard to fill the days, but at least there's one blessing - he was never convicted for all those rapes he committed. Then Victor meets David, the policeman he shot, and David's beautiful girlfriend, Clare. And suddenly Victor's new life is starting to look an awful lot like the old one."

Talking to Strange Men

Ruth Rendell

1987

"Safe houses and secret message drops, double crosses and defections - it sounds like the stuff of sophisticated espionage, but the agents are only schoolboys engaged in harmless play. But John Creevey doesn't know this. To him, the messages he decodes with painstaking care are the communications of dangerous and evil men, and as he comes face to face with the fact of his beloved wife Jennifer's defection, he begins to see a way to get back at the man she left him for. And soon the schoolboys are playing more than just a game."

Heartstones

Ruth Rendell

1987

"In a college town two schoolgirls live with their widowed father Luke, a gentle well-educated man, meticulous and orderly. Elvira and Spinny are watchful however for Luke plans to remarry and has chosen Mary. The threat to the girls world is removed, however, when Mary falls to her death."

The Veiled One

Ruth Rendell

1988

An Inspector Wexford novel

"Concealed by a shroud of dirty brown velvet, looking like a heap of rags, the woman's dead body lay between a silver Escort and a dark-blue Lancia. In the desolate shopping centre car park, Wexford has been too preoccupied to notice anything out of the ordinary - only the teenage girl in the red car, driving past him rather too fast. It was Burden who called him at home with the grim news later that evening: the woman had been attacked from behind, perhaps with a thin length of wire. But before Wexford can delve any deeper into this curious murder, he, too, faces death... Can Burden solve this mysterious crime without the help of his worldly Chief Inspector?"

The Bridesmaid

Ruth Rendell

1989

"Philip Wardman had more than just the ordinary squeamishness where death was concerned. Yet he could hardly avoid the suspicious disappearance of his sister's friend Rebecca Neave, especially when everyone was ascribing the cause to murder. Philip's feminine ideal is the statue of the Roman goddess Flora in his mother's garden. His marble Flora doesn't fade, doesn't alter, doesn't die. But then he meets Senta Pelham, a beautiful, sensual, childlike actress and a living incarnation of the statue. The two embark on a passionate affair that soon becomes dangerous when Senta sets Philip a test; to prove their love, they must each commit murder."

Going Wrong

Ruth Rendell

1990

"In Rendell's evocative portrayal of West London, the slums of Notting Hill Gate and the mews houses of Holland Park are not streets, but worlds, apart. When these two worlds collide, the repercussions are fatal. Guy and Leonora were childhood sweethearts, and belonged to the same criminal gang. But as the wealthy Leonora grew older, they grew apart, and Guy's innocent love turned into a dangerous, psychopathic obsession. When Leonora announces her engagement, Guy knows there must be some mistake - and he is determined to right it, at any cost. As he becomes the victim of his own murderous madness, nobody is safe."

The Copper Peacock And Other Stories

Ruth Rendell

1991

" In this, and eight other landmark short stories, including the Wexford tale An Unwanted Woman, Ruth Rendell once again proves she is the mistress of crime and mystery genres."

• A Pair Of Yellow Lilies
• Paperwork
• Mother's Help
• Long Live The Queen
• Dying Happy
• The Copper Peacock
• Weeds
• The Fish-Sitter
• An Unwanted Woman

Kissing the Gunner's Daughter

Ruth Rendell

1991

An Inspector Wexford novel

"The thirteenth of May is famously the unluckiest day of the year. Sergeant Caleb Martin of Kingsmarkham CID had no idea just how terminally unlucky it would prove, as he embarked upon his last day on earth... Ten months later, Wexford is confronted with a murder scene of horrific brutality. At first the bloodbath at Tancred House looks like the desperate work of a burglar panicked into murder. The sole survivor of the massacre, seventeen-year-old Daisy Flory, remembers the events imperfectly, and her confused account of the fatal night seems to confirm this theory. But more and more, Chief Inspector Wexford is convinced that the crime lies closer to home, and that it has sinister links to the murder of Sergeant Martin."

The Crocodile Bird

Ruth Rendell

1993

"Liza is not your average teenager. Sixteen years old, she lives with her mother, Eve, in a secluded gatehouse, which she has never been allowed to leave. There was only enough room for two in their cocoon; intruders entered at their peril, only to mysteriously disappear... Liza is not the only one to discover the truth behind her mother's pathological violence, or the dead bodies. When the police arrive on their doorstep, Eve throws her daughter into the real world, to protect her from the consequences of her own chilling crimes. As Liza runs into the arms of her secret lover, she begins to see the logic behind her mother's gruesomes crimes, and must accept the possibility that she has inherited Eve's lust for murder."

Simisola

Ruth Rendell

1994

An Inspector Wexford novel

"When a young, black woman goes missing in Kingsmarkham, Wexford must respond to a test not only of his powers of deduction, but of his basic beliefs and prejudices. Only eighteen black people live in Kingsmarkham. One of them is Wexford's new doctor, Raymond Akande. When the doctor's daughter, Melanie, goes missing, the Chief Inspector takes more than just a professional interest in the case. Melanie, just down from university but unable to find a job, disappeared somewhere between the Benefit Office and the bus stop. Or at least no one saw her get on the bus when it came... When the body of a young black woman is discovered, Wexford must overcome his underlying prejudices to allow his investigative skills to succeed."

Blood Lines: Long And Short Stories

Ruth Rendell

1995

"'I think you know who killed your stepfather', said Wexford, and so begins this scintillating collection of long and short stories by the world's best living crime writer, Ruth Rendell. …. The book ends with The Strawberry Tree, a disturbingly evocative novella-length tale of lost innocence, set on the island of Majorca. It is a triumphant conclusion to a collection of horror stories that linger in the mind."

• Blood Lines
• Lizzie's Lover
• Shreds And Slivers
• Burning End
• The Man Who Was The God Of Love
• The Carer
• Expectations
• Clothes
• Unacceptable Levels
• In All Honesty
• The Strawberry Tree

The Keys to the Street

Ruth Rendell

1996

"Mary Jago donates her bone marrow to save the life of a complete stranger; a generous act of kindness that culminates in a violent break-up with her brutish boyfriend. Moving to the affluent edge of London's famous Regent's Park, Mary believed she had finally escaped the threat of violence. She never thought that one simple act of kindness could put her own life in mortal danger. When the bodies of local homeless people are found impaled on the park's railings, violently murdered by a deranged serial killer, Mary could not have suspected a connection to herself. But on the dark and mysterious streets of Rendell's labyrinthine London, everyone is trapped in her tightly woven web of murder and mystery."

Road Rage

Ruth Rendell

1997

An Inspector Wexford novel

"A by-pass is planned in the sleepy village of Kingsmarkham, a move that would destroy its peace and natural habitat forever. Wexford's wife Dora joins the protest movement, but Wexford must be more circumspect. Trouble is expected. Before the protesters even have a chance to make their presence felt, the badly decomposed body of a young woman is discovered. Burden believes he knows the identity of the murderer, but Wexford is not convinced. Just as Wexford is about to investigate the murder, a number of people disappear - including Dora Wexford. The Chief Inspector must battle with his powerful emotions and solve the case immediately, before his wife is placed in any mortal danger."

A Sight for Sore Eyes

Ruth Rendell

1998

"Teddy Brex emerges from a loveless, isolated childhood as a handsome but autistic young man. Francine Hill, emotionally and mentally scarred by the murder of her mother, grows into a beautiful young woman, who must endure the overprotectiveness of an increasingly obsessive stepmother. Teddy Brex does ride to her rescue, but he is a man who has already committed two murders. In Rendell's dark criminal London, can anyone be trusted?"

Thornapple

Ruth Rendell

1998

A short story originally published in the collection The Fever Tree.

Harm Done

Ruth Rendell

1999

An Inspector Wexford novel

"A notorious paedophile is released back into the community. The residents of the Muriel Campden Estate are up in arms, and even prepared to take the law into their own hands... Chief Inspector Wexford is faced with the effects of violence and prejudice every day as a policeman, and he is also involved with a new programme to help victims of domestic violence. His daughter, Sylvia, has come to work nearby in a refuge for battered women. Her marriage is not a happy one, although her husband has never raised a hand to her. They are merely incompatible. Other women in Kingsmarkham are not so lucky... Wexford is soon called upon to investigate two extremely serious crimes which will affect the lives and attitudes of police and innocent villagers alike."

Piranha to Scurfy And Other Stories

Ruth Rendell

2000

"The long title story is about a man whose life, in a sense, is a book. ….. In the other stories, Ruth Rendell deals with a variety of themes, some macabre, some vengeful, some mysterious, all precisely observed. The second novella, High Mysterious Union, explores a strange, erotic universe in a dream-like corner of rural England, and illustrates very atmospherically what range Ruth Rendell has as a writer, expanding beyond her famous sphere of crime writing."

• Piranha To Scurfy
• Computer Seance
• Fair Exchange
• The Wink
• Catamount
• Walter's Leg
• The Professional
• The Beach Butler
• The Astronomical Scarf
• High Mysterious Union
• Myth

Adam and Eve and Pinch Me

Ruth Rendell

2001

"Adam and Eve and Pinch Me went down to the river to batheAdam and Eve were drowned. Who was saved? This old nursery rhyme is a favourite of Jerry Leach (if that is the name he is using at the time), a handsome ne'er do well, who sponges off women. Five women, unknown to each other, are his willing victims. One he even married once and abandoned, while promising to marry another. But, with the cruel irony he would be the first to recognize in that nursery rhyme, Jerry, almost accidentally, becomes the victim of one of his female prey."

The Babes in the Wood

Ruth Rendell

2002

An Inspector Wexford novel

"There hadn't been anything like this kind of rain in living memory. The River Brede had burst its banks, and not a single house in the valley had escaped flooding. Even where Wexford lives, higher up in Kingsmarkham, the waters had nearly reached the mulberry tree in his once immaculate garden. The Subaqua Task Force could find no trace of Giles and Sophie Dade, let alone the woman who was keeping them company, Joanna Troy. But Mrs Dade is convinced her children are dead. As he embarks upon this mysterious investigation, Wexford is forced to question many of his core assumptions about society, even about his own family."

The Rottweiler

Ruth Rendell

2003

"The first victim had bite marks on her neck so the London papers nicknamed her killer, the Rottweiler. He has been stalking the small and diverse London community of Lisson Grove, where Inez Ferry runs an antique shop frequented by a motley collection of eccentric individuals. When the Rottweiler's trinkets start showing up in the shop, suddenly, everyone Inez knows is a suspect, and the killer feels all too close."

Thirteen Steps Down

Ruth Rendell

2004

"A classic Rendellian loner, Mix Cellini is superstitious about the number 13. Living in a decaying house in Notting Hill, Mix is obsessed with 10 Rillington Place, where the notorious Christie committed a series of foul murders. He is also infatuated with a beautiful model who lives nearby - a woman who would not look at him twice. Mix's landlady, Gwendolen Chawcer is equally reclusive - living her life through her library of books. Both landlady and lodger inhabit weird worlds of their own. But when reality intrudes into Mix's life, a long pent-up violence explodes."

End in Tears

Ruth Rendell

2005

An Inspector Wexford novel

"A lump of concrete dropped deliberately from a little stone bridge over a relatively unfrequented road kills the wrong person. The young woman in the car behind is spared. But only for a while... A few weeks later, George Marshalson lives every father's worst nightmare: he discovers the murdered body of his eighteen-year-old daughter on the side of the road. As a man with a strained father-daughter relationship himself, Wexford must struggle to keep his professional life as a detective separate from his personal life as husband and father. Particularly when a second teenage girl is murdered - a victim unquestionably linked to the first - and another family is shattered."

The Water's Lovely

Ruth Rendell

2006

"The dead man was Ismay's stepfather, Guy. Now, nine years on, she and her sister, Heather, still live in the same house in Clapham. But it has been divided into two self-contained flats. Their mother lives upstairs with her sister, Pamela. And the bathroom, where Guy drowned, has been demolished. But Death will rear its ugly head once more... Ismay and Heather get on well. They always have. They never discussed the changes to the house, still less what had happened that August day. But as their love lives start to develop, someone is murdered along the way, and long buried suspicions re-emerge with potentially tragic results."

The Thief

Ruth Rendell

2006

"Stealing things from people who had upset her was something Polly did quite a lot. There was her Aunt Pauline; a girl at school; a boyfriend who left her. And there was the man on the plane... Humiliated and scared by a total stranger Polly does what she always does. She steals something. But she never could have imagined that her desire for revenge would have such terrifying results."

Not in the Flesh

Ruth Rendell

2007

An Inspector Wexford novel

"Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth something slightly less savoury - a human hand. The corpse, as Chief Inspector Wexford is informed later, has lain buried for ten years or so, wrapped in a purple cotton sheet. The post mortem can not reveal the precise cause of death. The only clue to solving this mysterious murder is a crack in one of the dead man's ribs. Wexford knows it will be a difficult job to identify the dead body. Although it covers a relatively short period of time, the police computer stores a long list of missing persons. People disappear at an alarming rate - hundreds each day."

Portobello

Ruth Rendell

2008

"On a shopping trip one day, Eugene, quite by chance, came across an envelope containing money. He picked it up. For some reason, rather than report the matter to the police, he wrote a note and stuck it up on lamppost near his house: Found in Chepstow Villas, a sum of money between eighty and a hundred and sixty pounds. Anyone who has lost such a sum should apply to the phone number below. This note would link the lives of a number of very different people each with their obsessions, problems and dreams and despairs."

The Monster in the Box

Ruth Rendell

2009

An Inspector Wexford novel

"Years earlier, when Wexford was a young police officer, a woman called Elsie Carroll had been found strangled in her bedroom. Although many still had their suspicions that her husband was guilty of her violent murder, no one was convicted. Another woman was strangled shortly afterwards, and every personal and professional instinct told Wexford that the killer was still at large. And that it was Eric Targo. A psychopathic murderer who would kill again... As the Chief Inspector investigates a new case, Ruth Rendell looks back to the beginning of Wexford's career as a detective, even to his courtship of the woman who would become his wife. The villainous Targo is not the only ghost from Wexford's past who has re-emerged to haunt him in the here and now."

Tigerlily's Orchids

Ruth Rendell

2010

"When Stuart Font decides to throw a house-warming party in his new flat, he invites all the people in his building and, after some deliberation, even includes the unpleasant caretaker and his wife. They are a disparate group of people, each with their individual Rendellian psychoses and potential for violence. There are a few other genuine friends on the list, but he definitely does not want to include his girlfriend, Claudia, as that might involve asking her husband. The party will be one everyone remembers. But not for the right reasons. Living opposite, in reclusive isolation, is a beautiful young Asian woman, christened Tigerlily by Stuart. As though from some strange urban fairytale, she emerges to exert a terrible spell on Stuart and his guests. Mr and Mrs Font, the worried parents, will soon have even more cause for concern about their handsome but hopelessly naive son."

The Vault

Ruth Rendell

2011

An Inspector Wexford novel

"Chief Inspector Reg Wexford has retired. He and his wife, Dora, now divide their time between Kingsmarkham and a coachhouse in Hampstead, belonging to their actress daughter, Sheila. Wexford takes great pleasure in his books, but, for all the benefits of a more relaxed lifestyle, he misses being the law. But a chance meeting in a London street, with someone he had known briefly as a very young police constable, changes everything. Tom Ede is now a Detective Superintendent, and is very keen to recruit Wexford as an adviser on a difficult case. The bodies of two women and a man have been discovered in the old coal hole of an attractive house in St John's Wood. None carries identification. But the man's jacket pockets contain a string of pearls, a diamond and a sapphire necklace as well as other jewellery valued in the region of £40,000."

The Saint Zita Society

Ruth Rendell

2012

"Dex works as a gardener for Dr Jefferson at his home on Hexam Place in Pimlico: an exclusive street of white-painted stucco Georgian houses inhabited by the rich, and serviced by the not so rich. The hired help, a motley assortment of au pairs, drivers and cleaners, decide to form the St Zita Society (Zita was the patron saint of domestic servants) as an excuse to meet at the local pub and air their grievances. When Dex is invited to attend one of these meetings, the others find that he is a strange man, seemingly ill at ease with human beings. These first impressions are compounded when they discover he has recently been released from a hospital for the criminally insane, where he was incarcerated for attempting to kill his own mother. Dex's most meaningful relationship seems to be with his mobile phone service provider, Peach, and he interprets the text notifications and messages he receives from the company as a reassuring sign that there is some kind of god who will protect him. And give him instructions about ridding the world of evil spirits."

No Man's Nightingale

Ruth Rendell

2013

An Inspector Wexford novel

"The woman vicar of St Peter's Church may not be popular among the community of Kingsmarkham. But it still comes as a profound shock when she is found strangled in her vicarage. Inspector Wexford is retired, but he retains a relish for solving mysteries especially when they are as close to home as this one is. So when he's asked whether he will assist on the case, he readily agrees. But why did the vicar die? And is anyone else in Kingsmarkham in danger? What Wexford doesn't know is that the killer is far closer than he, or anyone else, thinks."

The Girl Next Door

Ruth Rendell

2014

"Before the advent of the Second World War, beneath the green meadows of Loughton, Essex, a dark network of tunnels has been dug. A group of children discover them. They play there. It becomes their secret place. Seventy years on, the world has changed. Developers have altered the rural landscape. Friends from a half-remembered world have married, died, grown sick, moved on or disappeared. Work on a new house called Warlock uncovers a grisly secret, buried a lifetime ago, and a weary detective, more preoccupied with current crimes, must investigate a possible case of murder."

Dark Corners

Ruth Rendell

2015

"When Carl sells a box of slimming pills to his close friend Stacey, inadvertently causing her death, he sets in train a sequence of catastrophic events which begin with subterfuge, extend to lies, and culminate in murder. In Rendell’s dark and atmospheric tale of psychological suspense, we encounter mistaken identity, kidnap, blackmail, and a cast of characters who are so real that we come to know them better than we know ourselves. Infused with her distinctive blend of wry humour, acute observation and deep humanity, this is Rendell at her most memorable and best."

A Spot of Folly: Ten and a Quarter New Tales of Murder and Mayhem

Ruth Rendell

2017

"New and uncollected tales of murder, mischief, magic and madness. Ruth Rendell was an acknowledged master of psychological suspense: these are ten (and a quarter) of her most chillingly compelling short stories, collected here together for the first time. In these tales, a businessman boasts about cheating on his wife, only to find the tables turned. A beautiful country rectory reverberates to the echo of a historical murder. A compulsive liar acts on impulse, only to be lead inexorably to disaster. And a wealthy man finds there is more to his wife's kidnapping than meets the eye. Atmospheric, gripping and never predictable, this is Ruth Rendell at her inimitable best."

• Never Sleep in a Bed Facing a Mirror
• A Spot of Folly
• The Price of Joy
• The Irony of Hate
• Digby's Wives
• The Haunting of Shawley Rectory
• A Drop Too Much
• The Thief
• The Long Corridor of Time
• In the Time of his Prosperity
• Trebuchet

A Dark-Adapted Eye

Barbara Vine

1986

"Like most families they had their secrets. And they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. No onlooker would guess that prim Vera Hillyard and her beautiful, adored younger sister, Eden, were locked in a dark and bitter combat over one of those secrets. England in the fifties was not kind to women who erred, so they had to use every means necessary to keep the truth hidden behind closed doors - even murder."

A Fatal Inversion

Barbara Vine

1987

"In the long hot summer of 1976, a group of young people are camping in Wyvis Hall. Adam, Rufus, Shiva, Vivien and Zosie hardly ask why they are there or how they are to live; they scavenge, steal and sell the family heirlooms. In short, they exist. Ten years later, the bodies of a woman and child are discovered in the Hall's animal cemetery. Which woman? Whose child?"

The House of Stairs

Barbara Vine

1988

"Lizzie hasn't seen her old friend, Bell, for some fourteen years, but when she spots her from a taxi in a London street she jumps out and pursues her despite 'all the terrible things' that passed between them. As Lizzie reveals those events, little by little, the women rekindle their friendship, with terrifying results."

Gallowglass

Barbara Vine

1990

"When Sandor snatched little Joe from the path of a London Tube train, he was quick to make clear the terms of the rescue. 'I saved your life,' he told the homeless youngster, 'so your life belongs to me now'. Sandor began to tell him a fairy-tale: an ageing prince, a kidnapped princess chained by one ankle, a missed rendezvous. But what did this mysterious story have to do with Sandor's preparations? Joe had only understood his own role: he was a gallowglass, the servant of a Chief."

King Solomon's Carpet

Barbara Vine

1991

"Jarvis Stringer lives in a crumbling schoolhouse overlooking a tube line, compiling his obsessive, secret history of London's Underground. His presence and his strange house draw a band of misfits into his orbit: young Alice, who has run away from her husband and baby; Tom, the busker who rescues her; truant Jasper who gets his kicks on the tube; and mysterious Axel, whose dark secret later casts a shadow over all of their lives. Dispossessed and outcast, those who come to inhabit Jarvis's schoolhouse are gradually brought closer together in violent and unforeseen ways by London's forbidding and dangerous Undergound."

Asta's Book

Barbara Vine

1993

"It is 1905. Asta and her husband Rasmus have come to East London from Denmark with their two little boys. With Rasmus constantly away on business, Asta keeps loneliness and isolation at bay by writing a diary. These diaries, published over seventy years later, reveal themselves to be more than a mere journal. For they seem to hold the key to an unsolved murder and to the mystery of a missing child. It falls to Asta's granddaughter Ann to unearth the buried secrets of nearly a century before."

No Night Is Too Long

Barbara Vine

1994

"Tim Cornish thought he'd gotten away with murder. For months after he'd killed his lover off the Alaskan coast, there hadn't been a word. But then the letters started to arrive. It seems that someone knows what Tim has done. This compelling thriller delivers such a dark picture of romantic love that murder seems its natural mate. Frightening, suspenseful, and deeply unsettling, No Night is Too Long is a modern crime masterpiece."

The Brimstone Wedding

Barbara Vine

1995

"Jenny's marriage is loveless, and she is having an affair. She works at an old people's home, where she is especially fond of Stella, a gracious, dignified woman dying of cancer - whose own secrets parallel Jenny's - with the difference that she may have been involved in murdering her lover's husband. Both a finely crafted mystery and a disturbingly honest depiction of the kinship between love and madness, The Brimstone Wedding tells an unsettling story about the power and the poison of love."

The Chimney Sweeper's Boy

Barbara Vine

1998

"When successful author Gerald Candless dies of a sudden heart attack, his eldest, adoring daughter Sarah embarks on a memoir of him and soon discovers that her perfect father was not all he appeared to be. That in fact he wasn't Gerald Candless at all. But then, who was he? And what terrible secret had driven him to live a lie for all those years?"

Grasshopper

Barbara Vine

2000

"In the aftermath of the incident on the pylon - a gargantuan electrified grasshopper - Clodagh goes off to university, moves into a basement flat arranged by her unsympathetic family, and finds freedom trekking across London's rooftops with a gang of neighborhood misfits. As she begins a thrilling relationship with a fellow climber, however, both Clodagh and the reader are haunted by the memory of the pylon and of the terrible thing that happened there - and by the eerie sense that another tragedy is just a footfall away."

The Blood Doctor

Barbara Vine

2002

"Biographer Martin Nanther, Hereditary Peer in the House of Lords, becomes fascinated by the life of his ancestor, Henry Nanther, physician to Queen Victoria's royal family and a specialist in haemophilia, whose fascination with blood may have driven down dark, violent, and criminal paths."

The Minotaur

Barbara Vine

2005

"Kerstin Kvist enters crumbling Lydstep Old Hall to live with the Cosways and to act as nurse to John: a grown man fed drugs by his family to control his lunatic episodes. But John's strangeness is grotesquely mirrored in that of his four sisters who roam the dark, mazy Essex country house under the strict gaze of eighty-year-old Mrs Cosway. Despite being treated as an outsider, Kerstin is nevertheless determined to help John. But she soon discovers that there are others in the family who are equally as determined that John remain isolated, for sinister reasons of their own."

The Birthday Present

Barbara Vine

2008

"Tory MP Ivor Tesham has unconventional tastes. And in bored housewife Hebe Furnal he finds someone to share and enact his sexual fantasies. However, one day it all goes terribly wrong. Ivor plans a special liaison for Hebe's birthday - a daring sexual adventure. But dangerous games have unforeseen costs and consequences. And when there is an accidental death, scandal and ruin cannot be far behind. How long can a secret stay a secret? How long will friends protect a reputation? And how long before guilt catches up with you?"

The Child's Child

Barbara Vine

2012

"When Grace and her brother Andrew inherit their grandmother's house in Hampstead, they decide to move in together. It seems the obvious thing to do: they've always got on well, the house is large enough to split down the middle, and neither of them likes partying or loud music. There's one thing they've forgotten though: what if one of them wants to bring a lover into the house? When Andrew's partner James moves in, it alters the balance - with almost fatal consequences. The Child's Child is an intriguing examination of betrayal in a family, and of those two once-unmentionable subjects, illegitimacy and homosexuality."

Wexford: An Omnibus

Ruth Rendell

1988

Collects together the three novels: From Doon with Death, New Lease of Death, and Best Man to Die.

The Second Wexford Omnibus

Ruth Rendell

1988

Collects together the three novels: No More Dying Then, Guilty Thing Surprised, and Murder Being Once Done.

The Third Wexford Omnibus

Ruth Rendell

1988

Collects together the three novels: Some Lie and Some Die, Shake Hands for Ever, and Sleeping Life.

The Fourth Wexford Omnibus

Ruth Rendell

1990

Collects together the three novels: Wolf to the Slaughter, Put on by Cunning, and Speaker of Mandarin.

The Fifth Wexford Omnibus

Ruth Rendell

1991

Collects together the three novels: Means of Evil, Unkindness of Ravens, and Veiled One.

Ruth Rendell Omnibus

Ruth Rendell

1992

Collects together the three novels: The Face of Trespass, A Judgement in Stone, and A Demon View.

The Second Ruth Rendell Omnibus

Ruth Rendell

1993

Collects together the three novels: To Fear a Painted Devil, Vanity Dies Hard, and The Secret House of Death.

Ruth Rendell / Inspector Wexford: Four Novels in One Volume

Ruth Rendell

1993

Collects together the four novels: From Doon With Death, Some Lie And Some Die, Shake Hands For Ever, and A Sleeping Life.

The Third Ruth Rendell Omnibus

Ruth Rendell

1994

Collects together the three novels: One Across Two Down, Make Death Love Me, and Lake of Darkness.

Ruth Rendell / Inspector Wexford: Four Novels in One Volume

Ruth Rendell

1994

Collects together the four novels: New Lease of Death, Best Man to Die, Wolf to the Slaughter, and Put on by Cunning.

Three Cases For Chief Inspector Wexford

Ruth Rendell

2002

Collects together the three novels: Kissing the Gunner's Daughter, Simisola, and Road Rage.

Collected Short Stories, Volume 1

Ruth Rendell

2006

Collects together the stories originally published in Means of Evil, The Fallen Curtain and The Fever Tree.

Collected Short Stories, Volume 2

Ruth Rendell

2008

Collects together the stories originally published in The Copper Peacock, Blood Lines, and Piranha to Scurfy.

A Warning To The Curious: The Ghost Stories of M.R. James

M.R. James

Hutchinson

1987

Ruth Rendell's Suffolk

Ruth Rendell & Colin Ward

Chatto & Windus

1989

"This is an argument for decentralization - pointing out that too much power is centred on Whitehall and underlining the social breakdown this causes in rural areas of the UK. Rendell and Ward argue that regional and local government throughout Britain would restore power to the people who are now ruled by political processes governing levels of housing, education and social services - factors which affect the essential qualities of people's lives. They use the specific example of Polstead - their local town - where a village primary school has recently been closed down (against the wishes of the community) and where housing is unavailable for local first time buyers. They propose a radical network of local government based on the Swiss model."

Ruth Rendell's Suffolk

Ruth Rendell

1989

"A vivid element of place is a crucial element of Ruth Rendell's writing, and the landscape of the Wexford novels is strongly based in Suffolk. This is a collection of photographs of Suffolk with a text by Ruth Rendell on her favourite places."

Doctor Thorne

Anthony Trollope

1991

This Penguin Classics edition of Doctor Thorne includes an introduction by Ruth Rendell.

Barchester Towers

Anthony Trollope

1995

This Folio Society edition of Barchester Towers includes an introduction by Ruth Rendell.

The Reason Why: An Anthology Of The Murderous Mind

Editor: Ruth Rendell

1995

"Described as a psychological literary anthology, this is a collection of writings by a number of authors on the subject of murder, and what prompts men and women to commit it. The collection has been chosen and introduced by the crime-writer Ruth Rendell, and endeavours to see into the mind of murderers, their thoughts and dreams, their murderous acts and their remorse, in fiction and in fact. The anthology draws on the works of celebrated writers, including Shakespeare, Sophocles, Tolstoy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Edgar Allan Poe, John Banville, P.D. James, Patricia Highsmith, Sigmund Freud, Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, Norman Mailer, Rachel de Quieroz and Melanie Klein."

The Unspeakable Skipton

Pamela Hansford Jones

2002

This Prion edition includes an introduction by Ruth Rendell.

The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to The Romans

2011

This Pocket Canons edition of The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to The Romans includes an introduction by Ruth Rendell.