Best Selling Books by Ruth Rendell

A lonely man stumbles into a dangerous game in this twisting novel of psychological suspense by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Crocodile Bird. In a desolate alley on the bank of the Thames, a spy slips through the shadows. Mungo is the Director General of English intelligence, and he knows Moscow Centre has been watching him for weeks, but there is no spy in London better at losing a tail. Satisfied he hasn’t been followed, he drops off his message and disappears into the night. It’s a classic scene of Cold War espionage, save for one detail: Mungo isn’t a spy at all. He’s a teenager, playing an epic game of make-believe. John Creevey, still reeling from the implosion of his marriage, is dreaming of taking revenge against his wife’s lover when he discovers one of Mungo’s coded signals. Unaware that the message is simply part of a child’s game, he becomes obsessed with uncovering the rest of the spy network—a tragic misunderstanding that threatens to turn this imaginary war into something very real—and very deadly. “Rendell has brilliantly interwoven these compelling strands into one masterful tale of suspense,” writes Library Journal. Three-time Edgar Award winner Ruth Rendell was a master of psychological suspense, and Talking to Strange Men is one of the most unusual espionage stories in the history of the Cold War.

Called to Tancred House, to a scene of ghastly carnage, Chief Inspector Wexford must bring his considerable detective skills to bear on a case with no witnesses, two suspects who have vanished into thin air, conflicting clues, and a kaleidoscope of motives.

The stag party was terrific. The incident that followed was terrifying. . . . “The best mystery writer anywere in the English-speaking world.”—The Boston Globe Who could have suspected that the exciting stag party for the groom would be a prelude to the murder of his close friend Charlie Hatton? But it was—and Charlie''s death sentence was only the first in a string of puzzling murders involving small-time gangsters, cheating husbands, and loose women. Suspense is spiced with ironic twists as Chief Inspector Wexford and his assistant join forces with the groom to track down a killer. . . . Praise for The Best Man to Die “You cannot afford to miss Ruth Rendell!”—The New York Times Book Review “For readers who have almost given up mysteries . . . Rendell may be just the woman to get them started again.”—Ellery Queen''s Mystery Magazine “First-rate entertainment.”—Saturday Review

The search for the body commenced. Then the victim walked into town. Behind the picture-postcard facade of Kingsmarkham lies a community rife with violence, betrayal, and a taste for vengeance. When sixteen-year-old Lizzie Cromwell reappears no one knows where she has been, including Lizzie herself. Inspector Wexford thinks she was with a boyfriend. But the disappearance of a three-year-old girl casts a more ominous light on events. And when the public''s outrage turns toward a recently released pederast and another suspect turns up stabbed to death, Wexford must try to unravel the mystery before any more bodies appear, and before a mob of local vigilantes metes out a rough justice to their least favorite suspect. In Harm Done, the violence is near at hand, and evil lies just a few doors down the block.

Martin Urban is a quiet bachelor with a comfortable life, free of worry and distractions. When he unexpectedly comes into a small fortune, he decides to use his newfound wealth to help out those in need. Finn also leads a quiet life, and comes into a little money of his own. Normally, their paths would never have crossed. But Martin’s ideas about who should benefit from his charitable impulses yield some unexpected results, and soon the good intentions of the one become fatally entangled with the mercenary nature of the other. In the Lake of Darkness, Ruth Rendell takes the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished to a startling, haunting conclusion.

A deeply unsettling collection of stories that is two parts Stephen King, one part Edgar Allan Poe. "Piranha to Scurfy" is a brooding story of a solitary, middle-aged man who devotes his life to writing scathing letters to newly-published authors. He does so in memory of his dead mother, who nurtured his love of accuracy, and his fervent desire to set things right. She herself is buried in the garden, for reasons that become clear as the story comes to its surprising end. "The Wink" tells the story of a young woman, raped in a small English town, who has kept the event, and the identity of her assailant, secret for many years. During their inevitable encounters in town, the rapist has added to her humiliation by giving her a leering wink. In the end, the young woman exacts her revenge. "High Mysterious Union" is a haunting and profoundly disturbing tale of a young man who borrows his friend''s vacation home in remote, rural England to work on a literary translation. Told by his friend, after the fact, the story is full of foreboding and regret that she hadn''t warned him of her strange experiences with the insular local townspeople. These and the six other stories in this collection will keep readers transfixed.

“[Rendell is] undoubtedly one of the best writers of English mysteries and chiller-killer plots.”—Los Angeles Times It was better than a hotel, this anonymous room on a secluded side street of a small country town. No register to sign, no questions asked, and for five bucks a man could have three hours of undisturbed, illicit lovemaking. Then one evening a man with a knife turned the love nest into a death chamber. The carpet was soaked with blood -- but where was the corpse? Meanwhile, a beautiful, promiscuous woman is missing—along with the bundle of cash she''d had in her pocket. The truth behind it all will keep even veteran mystery fans guessing through the very last page. Praise for Wolf to the Slaughter “The best mystery writer anywhere in the English-speaking world.”—The Boston Globe “You cannot afford to miss Ruth Rendell.”—The New York Times Book Review “For readers who have almost given up on mysteries . . . Rendell may be just the woman to get them started again.”—Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

A psychological thriller following Teddy Brex, a handsome, young autistic man who comes to the aid of Francine Hill, a beautiful young woman traumatised by the murder of her mother, and now stifled by the overprotectiveness of an obsessive stepmother; but Teddy has already committed two murders.

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 bodies of the lovers, locked not in passion, but in death. And Susan whose own life would be imperilled by a monstrous crime far beyond the imaginings of the vilest tongues.

From an Edgar Award–winning author: Murder intrudes on a student’s secret history of the London Underground in this “brilliantly unexpected” mystery (The Times, London). Jarvis Stringer is a young man of many peculiarities, but no obsession has taken hold quite like that of writing the strange and twisting history of the London Underground. To finance his project, he rents out cheap rooms in the long-disused West Hampstead schoolhouse he inherited—a crumbling monument to morbid local lore. The boarders, each eking out their invisible lives above—and beneath—the city’s surface, are a collection of strays, waifs, subway buskers, and loners, who are raising the concern of Jarvis’s relatives and more proper neighbors. But even Jarvis has become suspicious. One of his outcasts may be a killer who’s plotting something unforgettable and catastrophic—and Jarvis himself has unwittingly become a conspirator. “A jolting novel of psychological suspense,” King Solomon’s Carpet was the recipient of the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award (The New York Times Book Review).

In End in Tears, Edgar Award winning author Ruth Rendell''s Inspector Wexford has his work cut out for him: When Mavis Ambrose is killed by a falling chunk of concrete, the police have no reason to suspect mischief. However, the bludgeoning of the young and gorgeous Amber Marshalson that follows is clearly murder. In the midst of the hottest summer on record, Inspector Wexford is called in to investigate. He discovers the two cases may be linked, and that Amber was at the scene of Mavis’s death. When a third body is found, the case takes a disturbing and unexpected turn. The deeper Wexford digs, the darker the realities become, and what he finds leaves him feeling lost in a world absent of morals.

From the multi-award-winning author of The Babes in the Wood and The Rottweiler, a chilling new novel about obsession, superstition, and violence, set in Rendell’s darkly atmospheric London. Mix Cellini (which he pronounces with an ‘S’ rather than a ‘C’) is superstitious about the number 13. In musty old St. Blaise House, where he is the lodger, there are thirteen steps down to the landing below his rooms, which he keeps spick and span. His elderly landlady, Gwendolen Chawcer, was born in St. Blaise House, and lives her life almost exclusively through her library of books, so cannot see the decay and neglect around her. The Notting Hill neighbourhood has changed radically over the last fifty years, and 10 Rillington Place, where the notorious John Christie committed a series of foul murders, has been torn down. Mix is obsessed with the life of Christie and his small library is composed entirely of books on the subject. He has also developed a passion for a beautiful model who lives nearby — a woman who would not look at him twice. Both landlady and lodger inhabit weird worlds of their own. But when reality intrudes into Mix’s life, a long pent-up violence explodes.

Life in the well-manicured London locale of Hexam Place is not as placid and orderly as it appears. Behind the tranquil gardens and polished entryways, relationships between servants and their employers are set to combust. Henry, the handsome valet to Lord Studley, is sleeping with both the Lord''s wife and his university-age daughter. Montserrate, the Still family''s lazy au pair, is helping to hide Mrs. Still''s illicit affair with a television actor--for a small fee. June, the haughty housekeeper to a princess of dubious origin, is hard at work forming a "society" for servants to address complaints about their employers. Meanwhile, a disturbed gardener, Dex, believes a voice in his cellphone is giving him godlike instructions--that could endanger the lives of all who reside in Hexam Place. A deeply observed and suspenseful update to the upstairs/downstairs genre, The St. Zita Society is Ruth Rendell at her incisive best.

This omnibus contains two of Ruth Rendell''s crime novels - ''The Babes in the Wood'' and ''Live Flesh''.

Alan Groombridge had a fantasy. Husband to a woman he didn''t like, father of two children he had never wanted, and manager of the second smallest branch of the Anglian-Victoria bank in the country, Alan was doomed to a life of domestic boredom and tedious routine. All that saved him was 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 there was no more dreaming and no more games. The Anglian-Victoria bank was robbed and both manager and cashier disappeared. ln place of the dull and dreary repetition that had once existed, there came a brutal, chilling nightmare that might never, never end.

An award-winning novel from a New York Times–bestselling author: The long-buried bodies of a woman and child are unearthed on a Suffolk country estate. When the new owners of Wyvis Hall, a rural estate in Suffolk, set out to bury their pet dog on the grounds, they stumbled upon a ghastly relic: the bones of a woman and small child in a shallow grave. The gruesome find makes stunning headlines, especially so for the previous occupants. A decade before, nineteen-year-old Adam Verne-Smith inherited the property and spent one debauched summer there with runaways, drifters, and his two best friends—none of whom have spoken since that fatal season. Adam is now a doting father and husband. His old buddy Rufus is a respectable doctor. And there’s Shiva, whose dreams of upward mobility drifted away. Unhinged by the discovery, they reunite, each with a protest of innocence. As the past slowly emerges, their regrets, desperation, and bitter incriminations get the best of them—and so will their secrets. A master of “deep, disquieting insight into the pathological dynamics of love” (The New York Times), author Ruth Rendell’s Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award–winning A Fatal Inversion is “rife with lost Edens, family secrets and stifled sexual urges” (Chicago Tribune). It was adapted for television by the BBC in 1992.

The bed was neatly made, and the woman on top neatly strangled. According to all accounts, Angela Hathall was deeply in love with her husband and far too paranoid to invite an unknown person into their home. So who managed to gain entry and strangle her without a struggle? That is the problem facing Inspector Wexford in Shake Hands Forever. Perhaps it was the mystery woman who left her fingerprints on the Hathall''s bathtub? Perhaps it was Angela''s husband who lied about a stolen library book? And why was the Hathall home, usually so unkempt, exqisitely clean the day of Angela''s death? Then a neighbor--friendly, knowing, disarmingly beautiful--offers Wexford her assistance. And what begins as a rather tricky case turns into an obsession that threatens to destroy the Inspector''s career--as well as his marriage. Maddeningly addictive, smart and surprising, Shake Hands Forever showcases Ruth Rendell at the height of her storytelling powers.

Inspector Wexford searches for answers after an elderly woman is murdered in this “spellbinder” from a New York Times–bestselling author (Publishers Weekly). When Chief Inspector Wexford enters the parking garage, the woman is already dead, slumped between two cars, concealed under a velvet shroud. The inspector doesn’t even notice her as he drives away. Only later, when he sees on the news that an old woman was garroted in the shopping mall garage, does he realize how close he was to discovering the body. In a case that starts with a hidden corpse, the truth will be dangerously elusive. Before Wexford can sink his teeth into the elderly woman’s murder, he is nearly killed himself—by a politically motivated car bombing targeting his daughter. With the inspector in the hospital, the case falls to his partner, the intrepid Mike Burden, who must solve both mysteries before the shopping mall killer strikes again. The winner of three Edgar Awards, Ruth Rendell was one of the finest mystery authors of the twentieth century. Inspector Wexford was one of her most beloved creations, and The Veiled One is another “stunning” entry in the series (Publishers Weekly).

A sleeping life :The body found under the hedge was that of a middle-aged woman, biggish and gaunt. There was nothing to give Detective Chief Inspector Wexford her address, her occupation or even her identity - let alone any clues which might lead to her killer.

INCLUDES AN EXCERPT OF RENDELL’S FINAL NOVEL, DARK CORNERS Diamond Dagger Award–winning Ruth Rendell has written a psychologically thrilling novel about the eccentric inhabitants of a London terrace, the secrets they keep, and what they will do to hide them. Is it dangerous to know too much about your neighbors? When Stuart Font decides to throw a housewarming party in his new flat, he invites all the people in his building—three flippant young girls, a lonely spinster, a man with a passion for classical history, and a woman determined to drink herself to death. After some deliberation, he even includes the unpleasant caretaker and his wife. He considered inviting a few other friends, but he definitely does not want his girlfriend, Claudia, in attendance, as he would also have to invite her lawyer husband. As it turns out, the party will be one everyone remembers. Living in a townhouse opposite Stuart’s building, in reclusive isolation, is a young, beautiful Asian woman known as Tigerlily. As though from some strange urban fairytale, she emerges infrequently to exert a terrible spell. And Stuart’s parents, always worried about their handsome, hopelessly naive, and undermotivated son, have even more cause for concern. Darkly humorous, piercingly insightful about human behavior, Ruth Rendell, whom People magazine calls “one of the most remarkable novelists of her generation,” has created an extraordinarily compelling story of our lives and crimes.

A bypass is planned in Kingsmarkham, but before the protestors make their presence felt, the badly decomposed body of a young woman is discovered. Burden thinks he knows the identity of the murderer, but Wexford is not convinced.

London''s wealthiest, poorest, kindest, and most vicious citizens all cross paths in Regents Park. Quiet, pretty Mary Jago could never have suspected that a series of unspeakable murders in the park contained threads that tangled around her simple, ordinary life. "From the Paperback edition.

Kriminalroman.

While Sarah Hussain, the reverend of St Peter''s Church, was not popular with many people in the community of Kingsmarkham, it comes as a profound shock to everyone when she is found strangled in the vicarage. A garrulous cleaner, Maxine, also shared by the Wexfords, discovers the body. The former Detective Chief Inspector, in his comparatively recent retirement, has little patience with Maxine''s prattle. But when his old friend Mike Burden asks if he might like to assist on this case as Crime Solutions Adviser (unpaid), Wexford leaps at the chance to tag along. Upon searching the vicar''s house, he discovers a letter serving as a bookmark, and what he finds inside begins to illuminate the murky past of Hussain. Was there more to her than meets the eye?

The Portobello area of West London has a rich personality - vibrant, brilliant in colour, noisy, with graffiti that approach art, bizarre and splendid. An indefinable edge to it adds a spice of danger. There is nothing safe about Portobello... Eugene Wren inherited an art gallery from his father near an arcade that now sells cashmere, handmade soaps and children''s clothes. But he decided to move to a more upmarket site in Kensington Church Street. Eugene was fifty, with prematurely white hair. He was, perhaps, too secretive for his own good. He also had an addictive personality. But he had cut back radically on his alcohol consumption and had given up cigarettes. Which was just as well, considering he was going out with a doctor. For all his good intentions, though, there was something he didn''t want her to know about... 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. And through it all the hectic life of Portobello would bustle on.

Kingsmarkham, a sleepy little English town under the police jurisdiction of Chief Inspector Wexford, is suddenly confronted with a series of killings. To solve the crimes, Wexford must accept that Kingsmarkham is no longer free from the national ills of sexual abuse, racism, and murder, and must work through stereotypes that may keep him from catching a killer. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

50th anniversary edition of the first Inspector Wexford novel, with an introduction by Ian Rankin and a new afterword by Ruth Rendell. An ordinary life. An extraordinary death. 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?

This title contains two novels by Ruth Rendell - ''The Bridesmaid'' and ''To Fear a Painted Devil''.

A stranger lures a child into his car with the promise of sweets. A young man spots his fianc?''s double in a public park of ill repute. An executive visits the secluded home of a former employee whose intentions are frightfully unclear. A modest soul weds the woman he rescues from suicide--only to fall victim to an unfathomable form of possessiveness?. In the eleven tales gathered in The Fallen Curtain, Ruth Rendell lays bare the twisted inner workings of the unbalanced mind.