Ruth Rendell

With this rich range of unabridged stories we celebrate the very best of contemporary writers and writing.Among others the collections features thriller writer Ruth Rendell, witty William Boyd, the Japanese literary sensation Haruki Murakami, ever-inventive Helen Simpson, and Patrick O'Brien, world-famous for his nautical series.Readers include top British actors Martin Jarvis, Rosalind Ayres and Janet McTeer.

THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY EDITIONWITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY KATE HAMER'If crime fiction is currently in rude good health . . . this is in no small part thanks to Ruth Rendell'IAN RANKIN'A classic mystery, as true to life now as it was half a century ago'MAIL ONLINE'Ruth Rendell's mesmerising capacity to shock, chill and disturb is unmatched'THE TIMESAN 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?

Mopsa, keda juhib vaimuhaigus ja ülim enesekesksus.Benet, keda tabab kõige rängem kaotus, mida ükski naine kanda suudab.Carol, kes on lõksus enda valitud elus, millest ei päästa ka rohked armusuhted.Kolm ema, kelle suhe lapsesse on äärmiselt erinev.Hüpnootilise pinge ja sügava isikliku kaastundega uurib Rendell pinevate, sageli kinnismõtetega seotud peresuhete maailma. Osavalt joonistab autor tegelaste psühholoogilised profiilid, kulmineerides oskuslikult pinge, et lõpuks üllatada lugejat ebatavalise lahendusega.1984. aastal Suurbritannia krimikirjanike ühingu Hõbedase Pistoda võitnud romaan "Kätepuu" on tõlgitud ligi 20 keelde, selle põhjal on valminud kaks filmi.Ruth Rendell (1930-2015) on tänapäeva säravamaid põnevuskirjanikke. Ta on avaldanud üle 70 kriminaalromaani (osa neist Barbara Vine'i nime all) ning hulgaliselt lühiproosakogumikke. Tema teoseid on tõlgitud ligi 30 keelde ja need on saanud mitmeid auhindu nii Suurbritannias, Ameerika Ühendriikides kui ka Põhjamaades.

Haarav psühholoogiline põnevik Briti krimikirjanduse kuningannalt Ruth Rendellilt"Silmale ilus vaadata" jutustab kolme saatuse poolt kokku viidud inimese loo, hoides lugejat pikalt teadmatuses, kuidas nad omavahel seotud on.Teddy kasvab perekonnas, kes temast ei hooli. Temast sirgub eraklik noormees, kel puudub empaatiavõime. Teddyst saab andekas puusepp, kes naudib ilusate asjade valmistamist, vastandudes nii ümbritsevale inetusele.Ema mõrvast vapustatud Francine'ist kasvab kaunis noor naine, kes peab taluma kasuema üha enam kinnisideeks muutuvat liigset kaitset.Harriet on juba lapsepõlvest kasutanud oma välimust edasijõudmiseks ja leiab end armastuseta abielust rikka vanema mehega. Ta kasutab aega, kui abikaasa kodust eemal viibib, suhete loomiseks meistrimeestega, keda ta juhutöödele värbab.Kui need kolm lugu lõpuks põimuvad, on tulemus painav ja unustamatu.Kas Rendelli hämaras kuritegelikus Londonis saab kedagi usaldada? See on maailm, kus süütud unistused võivad muutuda kõige kohutavamateks elavateks õudusunenägudeks ...Ruth Rendell (1930-2015) on Briti säravamaid krimikirjanikke. Ta on avaldanud üle 70 kriminaalromaani (osa neist Barbara Vine'i nime all) ning hulgaliselt lühiproosakogumikke. Tema teoseid on tõlgitud ligi 30 keelde ja need on saanud mitmeid auhindu nii Suurbritannias, Ameerika Ühendriikides kui ka Põhjamaades.

A special edition of A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell. Featuring an introduction by James Ellroy. On Valentine's Day, four members of the Coverdale family were murdered in the space of fifteen minutes. Their housekeeper, Eunice Parchman, shot them one by one in the blue light of a televised performance of Don Giovanni. When the police arrest Miss Parchman two weeks later, they discover a second tragedy: the key to the Valentine's Day massacre, a private humiliation Eunice Parchman has guarded all her life. A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Special Edition

Full-cast dramatisations of seven of Ruth Rendell's tense psychological thrillers.This collection includes:The Bridesmaid: A beautiful stone statue and her living double lead Philip into a nightmare of obsession and murder.Going Wrong: Besotted with his childhood sweetheart, Leonora, psychopathic Guy Curran will do anything to make her his.King Solomon’s Carpet: London’s Underground links a group of misfit housemates and is the catalyst for a devastating crime in this compelling tale, written under the pseudonym Barbara Vine.People Don’t Do Such Things: A suburban couple befriend a charismatic novelist, but their relationship soon slips into sinister territory.The Fever Tree: On safari in South Africa, Ford and Tricia find the tensions in their marriage exacerbated by the unforgiving wilderness.The Dreadful Day of Judgment: Clearing up an abandoned cemetery, John, Gilly and Marlon’s personal demons come to the fore.Thornapple: Poison enthusiast James becomes captivated by the ruthless Meribel on a visit to her wealthy aunt.Among the casts of these seven suspenseful adaptations are Jamie Glover, Mark Strong, Reece Shearsmith, Paul Rhys, Danny Sapani and Juliet Aubrey. Duration: 7 hours approx.

A spine-tingling anthology by the New York Times-bestselling author and master of "psychological insight . . . and, not infrequently, teeth-chattering terror" (The New York Times). These never-before-collected stories by Ruth Rendell--the three-time Edgar Award-winning mistress of dark suspense and one of the most celebrated thriller writers of the twentieth century--are "deliciously riveting, all the more so because Rendell's extraordinary ability to delve coolly and forensically into the dustiest nooks of the human psyche is amplified, not diminished, by the short story form. . . . Often the reader is taken by the throat" (The Guardian). In "The Thief," a chance encounter with a stranger triggers the most destructive impulses in a vindictive pathological liar. A family shares an unnamable feeling of dread and a necessary denial to make it through the night in "Trebuchet." In the title story, a caddish boor can't help but boast of his infidelities. A historic murder weighs heavy on the unholy reputation of a quaint local landmark in "The Haunting of Shawley Rectory." And in "Never Sleep in a Bed Facing a Mirror," Rendell delivers a masterstroke of gasp-inducing brevity. Here are tales of mystery, madness, terrible crimes, and chilling perdition, all dispatched with a wit so knife-edged and deviousness, so impeccably cool that it's little wonder Joyce Carol Oates hails Ruth Rendell as "one of the finest practitioners of her craft."

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. The stories are: 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; and Trebuchet. Introduction from Sophie Hannah.

"A spectacularly creepy and macabre tale" (Entertainment Weekly) of blackmail, murders both accidental and opportunistic, and of one life's fateful unraveling--from Ruth Rendell, "one of the most remarkable novelists of her generation" (People), writing at her most mesmerizing. Rendell completed Dark Corners shortly before her death in 2015. When his father dies, Carl Martin inherits a house in an increasingly rich and trendy London neighborhood. Cash poor, Carl rents the upstairs room and kitchen to the first person he interviews, Dermot McKinnon. That is mistake number one. Mistake number two is keeping the bizarre collection of homeopathic and alternative "cures" that his father left in the medicine cabinet, including a stash of controversial diet pills. Mistake number three is selling fifty of those diet pills to a friend, who is then found dead. Dermot seizes a nefarious opportunity and begins to blackmail Carl, refusing to pay rent, and creepily invading Carl's space. Ingeniously weaving together two storylines that finally merge in a shocking turn, Ruth Rendell describes one man's spiral into darkness--and murder--as he falls victim to a diabolical foe he cannot escape. This is brilliant psychological suspense that gets under your skin. As Stephen King says, "No one surpasses Ruth Rendell when it comes to stories of obsession, instability, and malignant coincidence." Dark Corners, her last book, "ranks among her best" (The Washington Post).

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.

London's wealthiest, poorest, kindest and most dangerous citizens all cross paths in Regent's Park. a generous act of kindness that culminates in a horrible break-up with her abusive boyfriend. Moving to the affluent edge of London's famous Regent's Park, Mary believes she has finally escaped the threat of violence.

INCLUDES AN EXCERPT OF RENDELL'S FINAL NOVEL, DARK CORNERS From crime legend Ruth Rendell, a psychologically intriguing novel about an old murder that sends shockwaves across a group of astonishingly carnal and appetiteful elderly friends: "Refined, probing, and intelligent...never less than a pleasure" (USA TODAY). In the waning months of the second World War, a group of children discover a tunnel in their neighborhood outside London. For that summer of 1944, the subterranean space becomes their "secret garden," where the friends play games, tell their fortunes, and perform for each other. Six decades later, construction workers make a grisly discovery beneath a house on the same land: a tin box containing two skeletal hands, one male and one female. As the hands make national news, the friends come together once again, to recall their long ago days for a detective. Then the police investigation sputters, and the threads holding their friendship together begin to unravel. Is the truth buried amid the tangled relationships of these aging men and women and their memories? Will it emerge before it's too late? Stephen King says, "no one surpasses Ruth Rendell when it comes to stories of obsession, instability, and malignant coincidence." In The Girl Next Door--"yet another gem" (The Washington Post)--Rendell brilliantly shows that the choices people make, and the emotions behind them, remain as potent in late life as they were in youth. "Rendell's wit, always mordant, has never been sharper than when she skewers patronizing assumptions about the elderly" (Chicago Tribune).

Anitaâ??s narrow white hand with the long nails painted pastel pink, the manâ??s brown hand equally shapely, the fingers slightly splayed.'Beneath the green meadows of Loughton, Essex, a dark network of tunnels has been dug.

INCLUDES AN EXCERPT OF RENDELL'S FINAL NOVEL, DARK CORNERS From "one of the most remarkable novelists of her generation" (People) a "refined, probing, and intelligent" (USA TODAY) mystery in the masterful Inspector Wexford series...more enthralling than ever after fifty years.A female vicar named Sarah Hussein is discovered strangled in her Kingsmarkham vicarage. A single mother to a teenage girl, Hussein was working in a male-dominated profession. Moreover, she was of mixed race and wanted to modernize the church. Could racism or sexism have played a factor in her murder? Maxine, the gossipy cleaning woman who discovered the body, happens to also be in the employ of retired Chief Inspector Wexford and his wife. Wexford is intrigued by the unusual circumstances of the murder, and when he is invited by his old deputy to tag along with the investigators, he leaps at the chance. As Wexford searches the Vicar's house, he sees a book on her bedside table. Inside the book is a letter serving as a bookmark. Without thinking much, Wexford puts it into his pocket. Wexford soon realizes he has made a grave error in removing a piece of valuable evidence from the scene without telling anybody. Yet what he finds inside begins to illuminate the murky past of Sarah Hussein. Is there more to her than meets the eye? No Man's Nightingale is Ruth Rendell's masterful twenty-fourth installment in one of the great crime series of all time, an "absorbing and rewarding" (Seattle Times) mystery that explores issues of sexism, class, and racism. As Stephen King said: "No one surpasses Ruth Rendell."

No Man's Nightingale: the eagerly anticipated twenty-fourth title in Ruth Rendell's bestselling Detective Chief Inspector Wexford series. The woman vicar of St Peter's Church may not be popular among the community of Kingsmarkham.

This captivating novel about residents and servants on one block of a posh London street is a "sex comedy and a social satire, of the 'Upstairs Downstairs' variety, with a few murders mixed in for our added delight" (The Washington Post Book World). *Includes an excerpt of Rendell's final novel, Dark Corners * Life on Hexam Place appears orderly on the outside: drivers take their employers to and from work, dogs are walked, flowers are planted in gardens. But beneath this tranquil veneer, this quintessentially London world of servants and their masters is set to combust. Henry, the handsome valet to Lord Studley, is sleeping with both the Lord's wife and his university-age daughter. Montserrat, the Still family's lazy au pair, assists Mrs. Still in keeping secret her illicit affair with a television actor--in exchange for pocket cash. June, the haughty housekeeper to a princess of dubious origin, tries to enlist her fellow house-helpers into a "society" to address complaints about their employers. Meanwhile, Dex, the disturbed gardener to several families on the block, thinks a voice on his cell phone is giving him godlike instructions--commands that could imperil the lives of all those in Hexam Place.