Showing results by author "Ruth Rendell" in All Categories

In traditional fairytales the handsome prince rescues the beautiful princess from her wicked stepmother, and the couple live happily ever after. But in Ruth Rendell's dark and damaged contemporary universe, innocent dreams can turn into the most terrible nightmares.

From the writer of the Wexford novels and read by Isla Blair. Once, when Benet was about fourteen, they had been in a train together, alone in the carriage, and Mopsa had tried to stab her with a carving knife. Threatened her with it, rather. Benet had been wondering why her mother had brought such a large handbag with her, a red one that didn’t go with the clothes she was wearing. Mopsa had shouted and laughed and said wild things and then she had put the knife back in her bag.

She was a wonderful, lovely lady, according to her niece. But Gwen Robinson had died in a bleak, underground car park, murdered by someone who knew just how to use a garrotte. But was she the intended victim? Or had Gwen died of mistaken identity? Mike Burden was convinced he knew who the killer was, and all he had to do was break him. Wexford wasn't so sure. They were missing something, he was sure of it....

Jock was supposed to have died in the Paddington train crash. Minty had received a letter from the railway company. But, curiously, the police hadn't been in touch. And Jock had gone off with all her savings. Then Jock's ghost starts reappearing to Minty: at home, at work, even in the cinema. He even touches her. Minty started to carry a knife. If he wasn't made of shadows, would he bleed?

The first girl had a bite mark on her neck, but they traced the DNA to her boyfriend. But the tabloids got hold of the story and called the killer 'The Rottweiler' and the name stuck. The latest murder takes place very near Inez Ferry's antique shop in Marylebone.

Previously uncollected and unpublished: new short stories from a master of psychological suspense. New and uncollected tales of murder, mischief, magic and madness. Ruth Rendell was an acknowledged master of psychological suspense: these are 10 (and a quarter) of her most chillingly compelling short stories, collected here together for the first time.

By the writer of the Wexford novels and read by George Baker. Someone must have had good reason to murder Mrs Elizabeth Nightingale on a dark September night. And as Detective Chief Inspector Wexford investigates, he discovers sinister undercurrents and dramatic secrets beneath the placid surface of the Nightingales' lives….

A collection of sleek and sinister stories from the creator of Chief Inspector Wexford.

Read by Isla Blair and George Baker, TV’s Inspector Wexford. A Dark Blue Perfume: A man with a gun and nothing left to live for brings this chilling tale to a fatal, but unexpected, climax. Hare’s House: Could simply knowing about the first murder in Hare’s house really have led Norman to a copy-cat crime?

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.

A spectacularly compelling story of blackmail, murders both accidental and opportunistic, and one life’s fateful unravelling from Ruth Rendell, writing at her most acute and mesmerising. When his father dies, Carl Martin inherits a house in an increasingly rich and trendy London neighbourhood. Carl needs cash, however, so he rents the upstairs room and kitchen to the first person he interviews, Dermot McKinnon. That was colossal mistake number one.

Who would have believed that Alice Whittaker’s life could change? She was 37, rich and 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 suddenly her beautiful friend Nesta vanished from it, leaving behind a trail of broken questions and confused clues. Now nothing is at is seems- and in this darker world below, anything can be done by anyone. Even murder….

The body found under the hedge was that of a middle-aged woman, biggish and gaunt. The grey eyes were wide and staring, and in them Detective Chief Inspector Wexford thought he saw a sardonic gleam, a glare, even in death, of scorn. But that must have been his imagination, and imagination was almost all he had to go on. The woman was a stranger. Her handbag held little more than three keys on a ring and forty-two pounds in a new wallet.

Familien Coverdale havde stor tillid til deres ældre hushjælp Eunice Parchman. Men Eunice havde en hemmelighed, som hun for enhver pris ikke ville have slap ud. Hun kunne hverken læse eller skrive, og hvor mærkeligt det end lyder, så var hun klar til at begå mord for at skjule det. Intet går imidlertid, som Eunice har planlagt, og familien Coverdale lærer på den hårde måde, at man ikke skal byde hvem som helst ind i sit hjem...

Da den unge Patrick Selby dør samme aften, som hans smukke kone holder fødselsdagsfest, vil sladderen ingen ende tage i den ellers så idylliske forstad, Linchester. Hele kvarteret var til stede, da Patrick blev angrebet af en hvepsesværm sidst på aftenen - men var det virkelig stikkene, der slog Patrick ihjel? Det mener lægen, Max Greenleaf, ikke. Og hvepse er jo ikke de eneste væsner, der slår ihjel ved hjælp af gift ...

Resterne af en hånd dukker op af jorden ved et gammelt og forladt hus. Det viser sig, at nogen har ligget begravet der i mere end ti år. Men hvem er det? Og hvem har svøbt den døde krop i et lilla lagen og stedt den til hvile? Liget er en mand, men ellers afslører obduktionen intet om hverken dødsårsag eller identitet, og kriminalkommissær Wexford og hans medarbejdere har kun en liste over forsvundne personer at gå ud fra. Et eller andet sted må der sidde en ulykkelig familie tilbage, der har mistet en far, en bror eller en søn.

Cette nouvelle inédite met en scène Polly qui a coutume de voler les gens qui l'ont contrariée. Jusqu'au jour où, humiliée et épouvantée par un parfait inconnu, elle réagit comme elle l'a toujours fait. Mais jamais elle n'aurait pu imaginer que son désir de vengeance aurait des conséquences aussi terrifiantes.

China both delighted and frustrated Wexford; the beauty, the history, all of that brought immense pleasure. But the unending attention of Mr Sung of the Chinese Tourist Board was hugely irritating – and that an old woman with bound feet should haunt him was puzzling and slightly frightening, without explanation. Back home, he found an answer to the last and then a whole new mystery opened up....

"We're all racist in this country" said Wexford. "Without exception. People over 40 are the worst and that's about all you can say." But until he became involved with the Akandes, whose daughter had gone missing, Wexford hadn't applied that reality to himself. Melanie Akande was black, one of only eighteen black people living in Kingsmarkham, and her father Raymond was Wexford's doctor. So he had a personal interest in the case. But as the case developed, Wexford discovered things hidden inside himself that he didn't like, found his own, unthinking attitudes prejudicing the case….

Sir Manuel Camargue, one of the greatest flautists of his time, was dead.Misadventure. An old man, ankle-deep in snow, he lost his foothold in the dark, slipping into water to be trapped under a lid of ice. Only a glove remained to point to where he lay, one of its fingers rising up out of the drifts. There’s nothing Chief Inspector Wexford likes better than an open-and-shut case. They’re so restful. And yet there are one or two niggling doubts – and the disturbing return of Camargue’s daughter, now a considerable heiress, after an absence of nineteen years.

Fifteen years after the Painter case had been closed, someone wants the case re-examined, history changed, and Wexford proved wrong.