Showing results by author "Ruth Rendell" in All Categories

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.

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.

'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.

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.

Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth something less savoury - a human hand. The body, as Chief Inspector Wexford is informed later, has lain buried for ten years or so, wrapped in a purple cotton sheet. The post mortem can not reveal the precise cause of death. The only clue is a crack in one of the dead man's ribs.

Sent to London for a rest by his doctor, Wexford can’t resist getting involved in the investigation of a mysterious murder. Read by TV’s Chief Inspector Wexford.

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.

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.

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.

Zum ersten Mal in seinem Leben verläuft für Carl alles nach Plan. Sein Romandebüt wird veröffentlicht, er hat ein Haus in Londons Stadtmitte geerbt, und er ist glücklich verliebt. Um jetzt noch für den nötigen Geldfluss zu sorgen, sucht er sich einen Untermieter, den er für einen wahren Glücksfall hält. Doch der vermeintlich zuvorkommende Dermot streift nachts durchs Haus, taucht im Dunkeln hinter Türen auf und durchwühlt Schränke und Schubladen.