Showing results by author "Ruth Rendell" in All Categories

When Stuart Font decides to throw a house-warming party in his new flat, he invites all the people in his building. After some deliberation, he even includes the unpleasant caretaker and his wife. There are a few other genuine friends on the list, but he definitely does not want to include his girlfriend, as that might involve asking her husband. The party will be one everyone remembers. But not for the right reasons.

On the day Lizzie came back from the dead, the police and her family and neighbours had already begun to search for her body. She had been missing for three days. A short while later, another young woman disappears, just as a convicted paedophile is released back into the community.

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.

Revenge is one of the great themes in literature, from Shakespeare to Poe. This collection contains 18 original stories commissioned for this volume plus a reprint of a classic Ruth Rendell mystery.

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.

More of the Greatest Mysteries of All Time is the second in a series featuring the finest short story mystery fiction by the most acclaimed writers, past and present. From Thomas Hardy, O. Henry, Jack London, Vincent Starrett and everyone in between, this unique collection, edited by multi-award winning mystery connoisseur Otto Penzler, is a delightful mixture of mystery and suspense.

In A Demon in My View, Ruth Rendell creates a character as frightening as he is fascinating. Mild-mannered Arthur Johnson has never known how to talk to women. And his loneliness has perverted his desire for love and respect into a carefully controlled penchant for violence. One floor below him, a scholar finishing his thesis on psychopathic personalities is about to stumble - quite literally - upon one of Arthur's many secrets.

A lump of concrete dropped deliberately from a little stone bridge over a relatively unfrequented road kills the wrong person. The driver behind is spared. But only for a while... It is impossible for Chief Inspector Wexford not to wonder how terrible it would be to discover that one of his daughters had been murdered.

Most people would have screamed. Mrs Hathall made no sound. She had seen death many times before, but she had never before seen a death by violence. Heavily, she plodded across the room and descended the stairs to where her son waited. "There’s been an accident", she said. "Your wife’s dead." Chief Inspector Wexford could discover no motive, no reason and no suspect – all he had were his intuitive suspicions. Probably he was reading meaning where there was none; probably Angela Hathall really had picked up a stranger, and that stranger had killed her.

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....

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….

Mix Cellini (which he pronounces with an 'S' rather than a 'C') is superstitious about the number 13. In the musty old house where he is the lodger, there are thirteen steps down to the landing below his rooms, which he keeps spick and span. His elderly landlady, Gwendolen Chawcer, was born in St Blaise House, and lives her life almost exclusively through her library of books, so cannot see the decay and neglect around her.

'Wexford had almost made up his mind that he would never again set eyes on Eric Targo's short, muscular figure. And yet there he was, back in Kingsmarkham, still with that cocky, strutting walk.Years earlier, when Wexford was a young police officer, a woman called Elsie Carroll had been found strangled in her bedroom. Although many still had their suspicions that her husband was guilty, no one was convicted.

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.