Ruth Rendell

The Monster in the Box: An Inspector Wexford Novel

Ruth Rendell, 2009

»One of the best-written detective series in the genre's history is ending. With The Monster in the Box, Ruth Rendell says farewell to Reginald Wexford, her popular chief inspector of Kingsmarkham, a small Sussex town south of London... I'm pleased to report that Monster brings both Rendell and Wexford back in strong form. Invariably, whenever I predicted the plot would go in a certain direction, I was wrong. For the first time in the series, we glimpse Wexford's youth, his days as a rookie cop, his eager but uncertain approach to his first cases, the comedy of his early dating, even his initial meeting with [his wife] Dora... We close the book on Inspector Wexford with the knowledge that he has had an illustrious career. And we accept this conclusion because at any time we can return to Kingsmarkham to explore the darker side of humanity with him as our reassuring and humane guide». Подробнее

The Thief

Ruth Rendell, 2011

From the author of End in Tears comes a chilling thriller for Quick Reads — books for emergent readers, published as part of the UK's World Book Day Adult Literacy Initiative 2006. What you do in childhood may come back to haunt you. Stealing things from people who had upset her was something Polly did quite a lot. There was her Aunt Pauline; a girl at school; a boyfriend who left. And there was the man on the plane... Humiliated and scared by a total stranger Polly does what she always does. She steals something. But she never could have imagined that her desire for revenge would have such terrifying results. Подробнее

The Monster in the Box

Ruth Rendell, 2010

From Ruth Rendell, reigning queen of crime fiction? (Time Out), the 22nd installment in the acclaimed Inspector Wexford series. Подробнее

Die Brautjungfer (карманный формат)

Ruth Rendell, 1992

Der 25-jährige Philip lebt mit seinen beiden Schwestern noch bei seiner Mutter und führt ein unspektakuläres Leben. Aber das ändert sich, als seine jüngere Schwester heiratet: Philip verliebt sich Hals über Kopf in eine der fünf Brautjungfern. Zu seinem Erstaunen erwidert die schöne Senta seine Gefühle. Sie ist ebenso verführerisch wie geheimnisvoll — und sie lebt in einer bizarren Scheinwelt. Philip gerät in einen geradezu hypnotischen Sog von Leidenschaft und Erotik. Dabei bemerkt er zunächst kaum, dass auch seine Welt zunehmend aus den Fugen gerät. Bis Senta einen Liebesbeweis der ganz besonderen Art von ihm fordert: einen Mord... Подробнее

Shake Hands For Ever

Ruth Rendell, 1994

A Reg Wexford mystery. The Chief Inspector could discover no motive, no reason and no suspect for Mrs Hathall's daughter-in-law's murder — all he had were his own intuitive suspicions. Probably Angela Hathall really had picked up a stranger, and that stranger had killed her. But why the doubt? Подробнее

Thirteen Steps Down

Ruth Rendell, 2005

A classic Rendellian loner, Mix Cellini is superstitious about the number 13. Living in a decaying house in Notting Hill, Mix is obsessed with 10 Rillington Place, where the notorious Christie committed a series of foul murders. He is also infatuated with a beautiful model who lives nearby — a woman who would not look at him twice. Mix's landlady, Gwendolen Chawcer is equally reclusive — living her life through her library of books. Both landlady and lodger inhabit weird worlds of their own. But when reality intrudes into Mix's life, a long pent-up violence explodes. Подробнее

End In Tears

Ruth Rendell, 2006

A father's worst nightmare. It's first light and George Marshalson's daughter hasn't returned home. He doesn't yet know that she never will — that her body lies prone just yards from the family house. Or that he will himself make the shocking discovery. Chief Inspector Wexford has never known a case of a father finding the murdered body of his daughter. He has daughters of his own but can barely imagine himself in Mr Marshalson's position. Tasked with picking through the pieces of a shattered family, Wexford unearths some surprising secrets about the dead teenager's lifestyle. And when a second girl is found murdered — a victim unquestionably linked to the first — Wexford has to put his own family problems aside to tackle what will become of the most disturbing and emotional case of his career. Подробнее

Piranha To Scurfy And Other Stories

Ruth Rendell, 2001

The long title story is about a man whose life, in a sense, is a book. There are shelves in every room, packed with titles which Ambrose Ribbon has checked pedantically for mistakes of grammar and fact. Life for Ribbon, without his mother now, is lonely and obsessive. He still keeps her dressing table exactly as she had left it, the wardrobe door always so that her clothes can be seen inside, and her pink silk nightdress on the bed. There is one book too that he associates particularly with her — volume VIII of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Piranha to Scurfy. It marked a very significant moment in their relationship.In the other stories, Ruth Rendell deals with a variety of themes, some macabre, some vengeful, some mysterious, all precisely observed. The second novella, «High Mysterious Union», explores a strange, erotic universe in a dream-like corner of rural England, and illustrates very atmospherically what range Ruth Rendell has as a writer. Подробнее

The Tree of Hands

Ruth Rendell, 2004

Once, when Benet was about fourteen, she and her mother had been alone in a train carriage and Mopsa had tried to stab her with a carving knife. It was some time since Benet had seen her mad mother. So when Mopsa arrived at the airport, looking drab and colourless in a dowdy grey suit, Benet tried not to hate her. But the tragic death of a child begins a chain of deception, kidnap and murder. Domestic dramas exploding into deaths and murders ...threads are drawn tightly together in a lethal last pattern. Подробнее

Not in the Flesh

Ruth Rendell, 2008

Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth something less savoury. The body, as Chief Inspector Wexford is informed later, has lain buried for ten years or so, and the post-mortem can not reveal the precise cause of death. Wexford knows it will be a difficult job to identify the corpse. Although it covers a relatively short period of time, the police computer stores a long list of missing persons. People disappear at an alarming rate – hundreds each day. When another body is found nearby, the detection skills of Wexford, Burden and the other investigating officers of the Kingsmarkham Police Force are tested to the utmost to discover whether the deaths are connected and to track down whoever is responsible. Подробнее

A Sight for Sore Eyes

Ruth Rendell, 2000

Teddy was born in squalor. Now he is a craftsman determined to banish ugliness from his life. Harriet is a beautiful, bored trophy wife who employs a series of repairmen for her sexual satisfaction. And Francine is a college student who witnessed her mother's murder and now must free herself from her father's manipulative second wife. Connected by strands of chance, their lives intersecting in the strangest of ways, these three people are on a journey that will bring them to each other — and to a beautiful ivy-covered home with at least one dead body in the basement.... Подробнее

From Doon with Death

Ruth Rendell, 1994

'Love and death', said Chief Inspector Wexford. 'Those were the only two sensational things that ever happened to Margaret Parsons, love and death. The thing is they both happened in my district.'The police knew all about Margaret Parsons' life, and by the look of it, it was very dull. Margaret Parsons had been a 'good woman'. Religious, old-fashioned and respectable, her life had been as spotless and ordinary as her home, as unexciting and dependable as her marriage. But it was not Margaret Parsons' life that interested Wexford. It was her death. She had been a predictable, ordinary woman — but now she had met a death of passion and violence for which there seemed no motive or clue. Подробнее

The Rottweiler

Ruth Rendell, 2004

The first girl had a bite mark on her neck. When the tabloids got hold of the story, they immediately called the killer 'The Rottweiler', and the name stuck. The latest body was discovered very near Inez Ferry's antique shop in Marylebone. Someone spotted a shadowy figure running away past the station, but couldn't say for sure if it was a man or a woman. There were only two other clues. The murderer seemed to have a preference for strangling his victims and then removing something personal — like a cigarette lighter or a necklace... Since her actor husband died, too early into their marriage, Inez supplemented her modest income by taking in tenants above the shop. The unpredictably obsessive activities of 'The Rottweiler' would exert a profound influence on this heterogeneous little community, especially when the suspicion began to emerge that one of them might be a homicidal maniac. Подробнее

Live Flesh

Ruth Rendell, 1995

After ten years in prison for shooting — and permanently crippling — a young policeman, Victor Jenner is released to a strange new world and told to make a new life for himself. It's hard to fill the days, but at least there's one blessing — he was never convicted for all those rapes he committed. Then Victor meets David, the policeman he shot, and David's beautiful girlfriend, Clare. And suddenly Victor's new life is starting to look an awful lot like the old one. Подробнее

The Water's Lovely

Ruth Rendell, 2007

Weeks went by when Ismay never thought of it at all. Then something would bring it back or it would return in a dream. The dream began in the same way. She and her mother would be climbing the stairs, following Heather's lead through the bedroom to what was on the other side, not a bathroom in the dream but a chamber floored and walled in marble. In the middle of it was a glassy lake. The white thing in the water floated towards her, its face submerged, and her mother said, absurdly, 'Don't look!'' The dead man was Ismay's stepfather, Guy. Now, nine years on, she and her sister, Heather, still lived in the same house in Clapham. But it had been divided into two self-contained flats. Their mother lived upstairs with her sister, Pamela. And the bathroom, where Guy had drowned, had been demolished. Ismay worked in public relations, and Heather in catering. They got on well. They always had. They never discussed the changes to the house, still less what had happened that August day... But even lives as private as these, where secrets hang in the air like dust, intertwine with other worlds and other individuals. And, with painful inevitability, the truth will emerge. Подробнее

Sins of the Fathers: An Inspector Wexford Mystery

Ruth Rendell, 1986

It was a brutal, vicious crime — sixteen years old. A helpless old woman battered to death with an axe. Harry Painter hung for it, and Chief Inspector Wexford is certain they executed the right man. But Reverend Archery has doubts... because his son wants to marry the murderer's beautiful, brilliant daughter. He begins unravelling the past, only to discover that murder breeds murder — and often conceals even deeper secrets... Подробнее

The Crocodile Bird

Ruth Rendell, 1994

A mother and a daughter live quietly in the rustic gatehouse of Shrove House, an isolated British estate. Their life seems perfectly ordinary except that daughter Liza has been kept isolated from the outside world for all of her sixteen years. And that he has seen her beautiful mother commit murder... more than once. Now, as the police come searching for a missing man, Liza's sheltered, strange world begins to fall apart. Piece by piece she will reveal her mother's tale of betrayal, desire, and obsession. Step-by-step we discover how much like mother, like daughter she is. Подробнее

Simisola

Ruth Rendell, 1996

In the quiet Sussex country town of Kingsmarkham, the daughter of Nigerian physician Raymond Akande is missing. «It's probably nothing», says Dr. Akande to his friend and client Chief Inspector Wexford, whose help he enlists. But the days that follow prove the doctor dreadfully wrong. A young woman is found murdered not Melanie, but the last person to have seen and spoken to her. A second woman's body is discovered, again not Melanie's, but like her, young and black. A third woman turns up beaten and unconscious; like the others, she is of Nigerian origin. As Inspector Wexford's investigation stretches from days into weeks, it becomes his unhappy obligation to counter the hopes of the doctor and his wife. In Wexford's professional opinion, Melanie, like the other young women, has become the victim of a serial killer with a horrifyingly singular objective. Подробнее

Road Rage

Ruth Rendell, 1998

The woods outside of Kingsmarkham were lovely, dark, and deep. And they were about to vanish forever when the new highway cut through them. While Chief Inspector Wexford privately despaired about the loss of his hiking grounds, local residents and outsiders were organizing a massive protest. Some of them were desperate enough to kidnap five hostages and threaten to kill them. One hostage was Wexford's wife, Dora. Now, combining high technology with his extraordinary detecting skills, Wexford and his team race to find the kidnappers' whereabouts. Because someone has crossed from political belief to fanaticism, and as the first body is found, good intentions may become Wexford's personal path to hell. Подробнее

Shake Hands Forever Reader

Ruth Rendell, 2009

The murder of Angela Hathall was extremely well planned. The only clue left was a single fingerprint with an L-shaped scar. The detective in charge, Reg Wexford, suspects that Angela's husband Robert Hathall killed his wife. But one question troubles Wexford most of all. Who is the mysterious woman Wexford is sure Hathall is seeing? Does she have an L-shaped scar on her finger? Подробнее

Ruth Rendell

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