Ruth Rendell

Chief Inspector Wexford, injured in a car bombing, must rely on Detective Mike Burden to catch a killer in what appears to be a murder without motive   Chief Inspector Wexford couldn't know that the bundle of rags in the parking garage concealed a body-he'd just been doing a bit of light shopping, after all, not looking for dead housewives. Wexford won't be on the case for long; a car bomb sends him to the hospital, and Inspector Mike Burden must...

"When his father dies, Carl Martin inherits a house in an increasingly rich and trendy London neighborhood. 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. Mistake number two was keeping his father's bizarre collection of homeopathic "cures" that he found in the medicine cabinet, including a stash of controversial diet pills. Mistake number...

A young woman, sheltered from the outside world, comes to terms with her deluded, murderous mother-and what she must do to survive   When the police come to the door at the gatehouse of a remote British estate, sixteen-year-old Liza and her mother know that their lives are about to change forever. After all, Liza watched her mother kill a man-well, more than just one. Having lived as a virtual hermit on the estate, Liza knows nothing of the outside...

A man falls under the spell of a mysterious woman, a marble statue, and a lover's promise - and must confront his role in the violence and death that follow. Meeting Senta, a woman who looks like a certain marble statue of the goddess Flora, is just about the most extraordinary thing that has happened to otherwise ordinary Philip, who dutifully cares for his mother and sisters in the London suburbs. But as their secret trysts evolve into an all-consuming...

In the Gold Dagger Award–winning crime novel, a young man writing a history of London's Underground must contend with a killer living under his own roof All his young life, Jarvis Stringer has obsessed over the London Underground. Now he's writing a detailed history of the subway, and to make money in the meantime he rents out cheap rooms in the crumbling former schoolhouse he's inherited, all to desperate single mothers, buskers, subway vigilantes,...

A young boy dies, another goes missing, and one mother's choice will forever alter many lives   When Benet's young son dies on the operating table, she cannot be comforted-not even by her mother who cares for a young boy just about the same age. Meanwhile, another mother's son goes missing, and police circle around possible suspects in what must be murder. These three mothers-the schizophrenic Mopsa, upwardly mobile Benet, and gold-digging Carol-become...

A man yearns to win back his wife's love and wreak vengeance on her lover with the help of a secret ring of spies. Dead drops, coded messages, and a safe house - it's all make-believe for a teenage spy ring. But when John Creevey intercepts the messages and believes them to be the work of a real crime syndicate, the spy games turn deadly serious in a fiery cocktail of obsession and revenge. Ruth Rendell expertly layers her narrative to reveal the...

When Lizzie and Bell meet for tea after nearly two decades apart, the topic of conversation is murder-one that Bell herself committed When Elizabeth Vetch spots Bell for the first time in seventeen years, she chases her down in order to learn why her old friend committed a terrible murder all those years ago. Bell has been in prison ever since the mysterious events that took place at the House of Stairs, a London mansion full of over-privileged, overstuffed,...

A century-old diary points to the truth behind a notorious murder, if only its writer's granddaughter can unlock its riddles Lonely, ignored by her husband, a stranger in a strange land, Asta Westerby turns to her diary for comfort shortly after moving from Denmark to East London. Starting in 1905, she records the details of her new life and the development of her newborn daughter, Swanny. In the end, her journal spans five decades and becomes a literary...

Discover a world of heroes and villains, suspense and intrigue. This riveting and comprehensive collection brings together some of the best crime writing of all time. Ruth Rendell and Frances Hegarty spearhead the modern genre, moving through the popular and rarely recorded Graham Greene, to Edgar Wallace and G.K. Chesterton and his master detective Father Brown. And that's not all. Stories included: Loopy by Ruth Rendell, read by Patrick Malahide...