Ruth Rendell
When the truffle-hunting dog starts to dig furiously, his master’s first reaction is delight at the size of the clump the dog has unearthed: at the going rate, this one truffle might be worth several hundred pounds. Then the dirt falls away to reveal not a precious mushroom but the...
“The best mystery writer anywere in the English-speaking world.”—The Boston Globe
Who could have suspected that the exciting stag party for the groom would be a prelude to the murder of his close friend Charlie Hatton? But it was—and Charlie's death sentence was only the first in a string of puzzling murders involving small-time...
In...
4) Road Rage
As Road Rage begins, Chief Inspector Wexford is walking through Framhurst Great Wood, just outside his beloved town of Kingsmarkham,...
Far from London, the isolated estate called Shrove House looms over the English countryside. Inside, two women hide from the world. For sixteen years, Eve has protected her daughter, Liza, from the corrupting influence of modern life, never letting her outside,...
Inspector Wexford searches for answers after an elderly woman is murdered in this “spellbinder” from a New York Times–bestselling author (Publishers Weekly).
When Chief Inspector Wexford enters the parking garage, the woman is already dead, slumped between two cars, concealed under a velvet shroud. The inspector doesn’t even notice her as he drives away. Only later, when he sees on the news that
Philip Wardman is disgusted by murder. He cannot tolerate violent films or the local news, and when his friends discuss such things he often leaves the room. At his sister’s wedding, Philip becomes infatuated with a strange, silver-haired woman named...
8) Live Flesh
In a remote corner of London, a woman is walking her dog when a man grabs her from behind. She screams, and her attacker flees, escaping into a nearby house, where he finds another victim. Victor Jenner has a compulsion he does not understand—to grab women, to hurt them—and he also...
For London’s Chief Inspector Reg Wexford, it wasn’t an official call. He was just being neighborly when he agreed to talk to Joy Williams about her missing husband, Rodney. Apparently, he went to Ipswich on business and never came home. Wexford has...
A self-appointed critic reads books only to catch out their errors of fact and usage, which he points out to their authors in vicious letters: Then one day he comes upon a book that attacks him. An elderly woman finally avenges herself on the man who raped her sixty years before. An idyllic village in the English countryside offers newcomers...
13) The Rottweiler
No one admitted to spotting the doctor's missing daughter—even after the murders began. Melanie Akande, eschewing privilege, had insisted on going to the jobsearch office to find employment. But between that office and the bus stop, she vanished. Inspector Wexford hoped someone would have noticed her, since the Akandes were among...
There is nothing...
On Valentine's Day, four members of the Coverdale family—George, Jacqueline, Melinda and Giles—were murdered in the space of 15 minutes. Their housekeeper, Eunice Parchman, shot them, one by one, in the blue light of a televised performance of Don Giovanni. When Detective Chief Superintendent William Vetch arrests Miss Parchman two weeks later, he discovers...
After celebrated English author Gerald Candless dies of a heart attack at his clifftop home above Gaunton Dunes in Devon, his eldest daughter, Sarah, is commissioned to write his biography. Ever-present in her life, her father was generous, passionate, and talented,...
In a desolate alley on the bank of the Thames, a spy slips through the shadows. Mungo is the Director General of English intelligence, and he knows Moscow Centre has been watching him for weeks, but there is no spy in London better at losing a tail....
“The best mystery writer anywhere in the English-speaking world.”—The Boston Globe
Elizabeth and Quentin Nightingale. A happy couple who lived quite graciously at Myfleet Manor in the gentle English countryside.
Elizabeth Nightingale found peace and tranquility on her nightly walks through the rich, dense forests surrounding Myfleet...
From a New York Times–bestselling author: A novelist pieces together the murderous past of an old friend—“smoldering suspense . . . literally unputdownable” (Time Out).
When writer Lizzie Vetch has tea with her old friend, Bell Sanger, the women are reunited for the first time in nearly two decades. Limbo years, Lizzie calls them, full of “all the terrible things”