Ruth Rendell

Two damaged children. Teddy became a handsome young man, Francine was beautiful - a sight for sore eyes. But it was death that brought them together....

Sarah Hussain was not popular in the community of Kingsmarkham. She was born of mixed parents - a white Irishwoman and an immigrant Indian Hindu....

A lump of concrete dropped deliberately from a little stone bridge kills the wrong person. The young woman in the car behind is spared. But only for a while....

Chief Inspector Reg Wexford has retired. He and his wife, Dora, now divide their time between Kingsmarkham and their daughter....

All he has to go on is his own intuitive suspicions. Was he becoming cynical and untrusting or was this one of the most ingenious crimes he had ever tackled?....

Concealed by a shroud of dirty brown velvet was what looked like a heap of rags....

The massacre at Tancred House seems at first to be the work of a burglar, panicked into killing. But Chief Inspector Wexford believes there are links with the murder of a Kingsmarkham detective....

There were some things about Chief Inspector Wexford's trip to China that he could never have dreamt of....

Four members of the Coverdale family - George, Jacqueline, Melinda and Giles....

Only eighteen black people live in Kingsmarkham. One of them is Wexford's new Doctor, Raymond Akande. When the doctor's daughter, Melanie, goes missing....

The bleak expanse of Vangmoor was a dark, forbidding place. One victim had been found there, blonde, her face disfigured, her head shorn close to the scalp - killed without motive or mercy....

Wexford had almost made up his mind that he would never again set eyes on Eric Targo. And yet there he was, back in Kingsmarkham, still with that cocky, strutting walk....

'I think you know who killed your stepfather', said Wexford....

Dex works as a gardener for Dr Jefferson at his home on Hexam Place in Pimlico: an exclusive street inhabited by the rich....

With deceptive economy in these nine short stories, Ruth Rendell indicates hidden depths in ordinary events and creates a sense of profound unease....

Chief Inspector Wexford tries to solve a murder with no evidence, not even a body....

A simple case of a man running off with a woman other than his wife. But when another woman reports that her husband is missing, the case turns unpleasantly complex....

Sent to London for a rest by his doctor....

Chief Inspector Wexford is concerned about a pedophile who has been recently released back into the community but cannot foresee a series of serious crimes waiting to happen....

Louise North doesn't care what the neighbors think. She lets her lover leave his car just outside her house in broad daylight....