Books by Ruth Rendell

The tenth book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford. On a sultry August evening, the bloody body of a middle-aged woman is discovered beneath a hedge by a small boy.

The ninth book to feature the classic crime-solving Detective Chief Inspector Wexford. 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.

When the body of a brutally beaten girl is found in a quarry during a hedonistic hippy festival at Sundays near Kingsmarkham, Wexford is first on the scene. Through a web of lies and deceit Wexford uncovers a history of love and hate that began years earlier, and he realises that never has he witnessed a murder of such desperate passion.

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.

Eugene Wren inherited an art gallery from his father. One day, Eugene, quite by chance, came across an envelope containing money. Rather than report the matter to the police, he wrote a note and stuck it up on a lamppost. This note would link the lives of a number of very different people - each with their obsessions, dreams, and despairs.

The second book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford. Even the dead have something to hide... The discovery of Elizabeth Nightingale's broken body in the woods near her home could not have come as a bigger shock.

The fourth book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford. Nothing is ever quite what it seems... A man and his daughter lie dead after a car accident.

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.

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.

The first book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford. 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'.

Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth something less savoury - a human hand.The detection skills of Wexford, Burden and the other investigating officers of the Kingsmarkham Police Force are tested to the utmost to discover whether the murders are connected and to track down whoever is responsible.

The white thing in the water floated towards her, its face submerged, and her mother said, absurdly, "Don't look!"'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.

Contemporary short fiction from CSA Word's popular Short Stories series

Presents a collection of short stories from Ruth Rendell. This work comprises of stories such as: "The new Girl Friend", "The Coppper Peacock", "Blood Lines", and "Piranha To Scurfy".

A lump of concrete dropped deliberately from a little stone bridge over a relatively unfrequented road kills the wrong person.

'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. It was clear both to Wexford and Burden that Tom Peterlee was not killed for GBP360, but various people would have liked them to believe the lie.

"Adam and Eve and Pinch Me went down to the river to bathe. Adam and Eve were drowned. Who was saved?" This old nursery rhyme is a favorite of Jerry Leach, a handsome ne'er do well, who sponges off women. Five women, unknown to each other, are his willing victims. But Jerry, almost accidentally, becomes the victim of one of his female prey.

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.

Three classic Ruth Rendell stories: Means of Evil, The Fallen Curtain and The Fever Tree. Ruth Rendell is unequalled in her ability to weave stories that challenge our preconceptions and prejudices.

A Ruth Rendell mystery, first published in 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.

The sixteenth book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford. 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.

The seventeenth book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford. 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.

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.

The latest body was discovered very near Inez Ferry's antique shop in Marylebone. Trinkets very similar to those mysteriously appearing in Inez's shop. Since her actor husband died, too early into their marriage, Inez supplemented her modest income by taking in tenants above the shop.

The long title story is about a man whose life, in a sense, is a book. 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.

The eighteenth book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford. A young girl disappears, then another. A notorious paedophile is released back into the community.

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 are caught up in their own psychologically twisted parallel worlds.

The River Brede had burst its banks, and not a single house in the valley had escaped flooding. The teenagers are fifteen and thirteen, the sitter's in her thirties, they can all swim and the house is miles above the floods. There hadn't been anything like this kind of rain in living memory. The Subaqua Task Force could find no trace of Giles.

And it was Susan whose own life would be imperilled by a monstrous crime far beyond the imaginings of the vilest gossiping tongues. A classic Rendellian murder mystery.

The Copper Peacock: a hideous bookmark given to Bernard, a writer, by his attractive cleaning lady, Judy.