| RUTH RENDELL
- DCI WEXFORD |
||
| Barbara Vine Psychological Mysteries TV & Film Adaptations Home Page Authors Menu | ||
| YEAR |
TITLE |
|
| 1964 | \ |
FROM DOON WITH DEATH: Margaret Parsons is dead. She appeared to lead a very dull life. She 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.However, it was not because of her life that Chief Inspector Wexford got involved, but her death... How is it possible that a woman who had led such a quiet, respectable, unspectacular life could have met such a death of passion and violence? To Wexford, it simply does not make sense, until he begins to slowly uncover the layers of Margaret Parsons' real life... R83 RR96 |
| 1967 |  |
A NEW LEASE OF
DEATH (aka SINS OF THE
FATHERS): It's impossible to forget
the violent bludgeoning to death of an elderly
lady in her home. Even more so when it's your
first murder case. Wexford believed he'd
solved Mrs Primero's murder fifteen years ago.
It was no real mystery. Everyone knew Painter,
her odd-job man, had done it. There had never
been any doubt in anyone's mind. Until now
...Henry Archery's son is engaged to Painter's
daughter. Only Archery can't let the past
remain buried. He wants to prove Wexford wrong
and in probing into the lives of the witnesses
questioned all those years ago, he stirs up
more than old ghosts. R83 |
| 1967 |  |
WOLF TO THE
SLAUGHTER: Anita Margolis had
vanished. There was no body, no crime -
nothing more concrete than an anonymous
letter and the intriguing name of Smith.
Inspector Burden could see exactly what had
happened to Anita Margolis. Not only had
Anita been wealthy and flighty, she had been
thoroughly immoral as well. Decent women
were either married or had jobs, or both.
They didn't bring lovers home in the
afternoon. They also knew enough to keep
their money in the bank, not in their
handbags. Chief Inspector Wexford, however,
had other ideas. O-R83
RR87
|
| 1969 |  |
THE BEST MAN TO
DIE: Jack Pertwee was getting married
in the morning, and the Kingsmarkham and
District Darts Club gathered in the Dragon to
give him a send off. Charlie Hatton drove his
lorry eleven hours down from Leeds just to be
there. Charlie was Jack's best friend and he
would be his best man. When the two finally
parted at the Kingsbrook bridge, Jack felt as
though his life was just beginning. But for
Charlie Hatton life was about to end.
Detective Chief Inspector Wexford wondered why
the fatal Fanshawe car accident kept upsetting
his concentration on the Hatton murder. There
couldn't be a connection. Fanshawe had been a
wealthy stockbroker; Charlie Hatton had been a
cocky little lorry driver with some illegal
dealing. But was it just a coincidence that
Hatton had been killed on the day following
that of Mrs Fanshawe's regaining
consciousness? O-R83 |
| 1970 |  |
A GUILTY THING
SURPRISED: The Nightingales were
always a very happy couple. If a husband and
wife never discuss anything but the weather,
are waited on hand and foot, are childless and
physically cold, what is there to quarrel
about? But someone must have had reason to
quarrel with Elizabeth. Someone who was alone
with her in the woods that dark September
night. Someone who either loved her or hated
her so much that they beat her head in until
she was dead. The Nightingale case seemed
straightforward enough on the surface, but
coming closer everything began to shift and
change. Detective Chief Inspector Wexford soon
discovered that beneath the placid surface of
the Nightingales' lives there were
undercurrents and secrets no one had ever
suspected. Wexford was more than baffled:
every little thing seemed to prove his
theories wrong. These days it seemed to him
that he was always wrong ... O-R81 |
| 1971 |  |
NO MORE DYING
THEN: On a stormy February afternoon,
little Stella Rivers disappeared - and was
never seen again. There were no clues, no
demands and no traces. And there was nowhere
else for Wexford and his team to look. All
that remained was the cold fear and awful
dread that touched everyone in Kingsmarkham.
Just months later, another child vanishes -
five-year-old John Lawrence. Wexford and
Inspector Burden are launched into another
investigation and, all too quickly, chilling
similarities to the Stella Rivers case emerge.
Then the letters begin. Horrifying, evil,
threatening letters of a madman. And suddenly
Wexford is fighting against time to find the
missing boy, before he meets the same fate as
poor Stella. R78 |
| 1972 | j |
MURDER BEING ONCE
DONE: It seems fitting that the final
resting place of a girl's body should be in a
graveyard. But this is no peaceful burial.
This is a brutal murder scene. On strict
orders from his doctor, Wexford is sent to
London for a break away from the pressures of
the Kingsmarkham constabulary. But then he
discovers his nephew Howard is heading the
investigation into the macabre murder of
Loveday Morgan, whose body was found abandoned
in Kenbourne Cemetery. Despite opposition from
Howard and his team Wexford is drawn to the
case. And when he unearths Loveday's
connection to a religious cult whose leader
was imprisoned for sexual abuse, he
relentlessly pursues this sinister new
lead.... R81 |
| 1973 |  |
SOME LIE AND SOME
DIE: When the body of a brutally
beaten girl is found in a quarry during a
hedonistic hippy festival at Sundays near
Kingsmarkham, Wexford is first on the scene.
The victim's face has been pulped by the
back-end of a bottle, but who, in this
atmosphere of peace and love, could be capable
of such violence? The body is that of local
girl turned stripper, Dawn Stonor, but it is
the unlikely link between this ill-fated girl
and the mysterious folk-singer, Zeno Vedast,
that pique Wexford's interest. Through a web
of lies and deceit Wexford uncovers a history
of love and hate that began years earlier, and
he realises that never has he witnessed a
murder of such desperate passion... R81 |
| 1975 |  |
SHAKE HANDS FOR
EVER: Past masters at cherishing a
sense of grievance, totally lacking the
gracious touch - that was the Hathall family.
When accountant Robert Hathall took his
bristling old mother down to Kingsmarkham for
a weekend, the idea was to create better
feeling between her and Robert's second wife,
Angela. But when they arrived, there was no
Angela to meet them in her car at the station
and mother and son had to walk to Hobart's
cottage where there was still no sign of
Angela - until Mrs Hathall went upstairs and
found the strangled body on the bed. Chief
Inspector Wexford took charge of the
investigation. The house offered few clues and
from the start Wexford felt dissatisfied with
Robert's behaviour and reactions. Had Angela
really been the victim of an intruder? Who was
the other woman in Robert's life? And whose
was the strange female hand-print on the side
of the bath? The trail leads Wexford to London
and to a solution as satisfying as it is
bizarre. O-R78 RR91 |
| 1978 |  |
A SLEEPING LIFE:
On a sultry August evening, the bloody body of
a middle-aged woman is discovered beneath a
hedge by a small boy. There are only two
things that surprise Wexford about the murder
scene. One, that the only contents of the
woman's handbag are some keys and a wallet
containing nothing but some money. And two,
how even in death, her deathly grey eyes
possess a scornful glare. The woman turns out
to be Rhoda Comfrey, but there's no murder
weapon, no apparent motive, and no one who
actually cares she's died. Wexford's only
hunch is that the clues to her murder must lie
in her solitary London life. But her existence
there becomes frustratingly impossible to
trace. O-R82 RR12/16 |
| 1979 |
 |
MEANS OF EVIL and
other Stories: Contains
five stories, all featuring Wexford: MEANS OF
EVIL; THE OLD WIVES' TALES; GINGER AND THE
KINGSMARKHAM CHALK CIRCLE (NO MORE CRYING HE
MAKES); ACHILLES HEEL; WHEN THE WEDDING WAS
OVER. R82 |
| 1981 |  |
PUT ON BY
CUNNING (aka DEATH NOTES):
Sir Manuel Camargue, yesterday one of the
most celebrated musicians of his time, today
floats in the lake near his sprawling
English country house. The consensus is
"tragic accident." Inspector Wexford, that
most human and dogged of sleuths, knows foul
play when he smells it. Particularly in the
fair company of two suspects - one, the
victim's fiancee who is too young to be
true, the other his daughter who may be no
kin and even less kind. In California and
the South of France they lead the Inspector
on a trail of disappearance and death to a
place where all the music stops. O-R82
RR89
|
| 1983 |  |
THE SPEAKER OF
MANDARIN: Chief Inspector Wexford
returns from his trip-of-a-lifetime to China,
only to be haunted by his memories of the old
woman with bound feet following him from one
city to the next and the man who tragically
drowned. Now, back in England, he finds
himself investigating the murder of a fellow
tourist. His investigative instincts keep
leading him back to the East, a place more
mysterious than he had ever imagined. R? |
| 1985 |  |
AN UNKINDNESS OF
RAVENS: An “Unkindness” is the
collective noun for a group of ravens. They
are not particularly predatory birds, but
neither are they soft and submissive. Now, the
Raven has become the symbol of a militant
feminist group known as Arria, whose attitude
to the male gender is, like the nature of said
bird, far from submissive.When Chief Inspector
Wexford was asked to investigate the
disappearance of his neighbour Rodney Williams
he was certain it was just a case of another
middle-aged man having run-off with a young
woman. All the signs pointed that way. A waste
of time to concern yourself with, his thoughts
tell him. However, he would be shocked to his
core when, weeks later, Rodney’s disappearance
turns out to be the centre of a violent and
bizarre murder. O-R85 RR-01/17
|
| 1988 |  |
THE VEILED ONE:
The woman's body lay between a silver Escort
and a dark-blue Lancia. Concealed by a shroud
of dirty brown velvet, it looked like a heap
of rags. In the desolate subterranean car park
of the Barringdean Shopping Centre, Reg
Wexford had been too preoccupied to notice
anything out of the ordinary, just the time
and a red car driving past him, rather too
fast. Burden called him at home with the grim
news later that evening. The woman had been
attacked from behind, perhaps with a thin
length of cord or wire. Before Inspector
Wexford can delve deeper into this curious
homicide, he, too, faces death. And Burden,
for a while conducting the investigation
without the help of his chief’s instinctive
analytical genius, will blunder down a number
of blind alleys. The Veiled One is dark,
complex and full of surprises…O-R88 |
| 1991 |
AN UNWANTED
WOMAN: Originally
published in the collection THE COPPER
PEACOCK and Other Stories R91 |
|
| 1992 |  |
KISSING THE
GUNNER's DAUGHTER: Friday the
thirteenth of May is the unluckiest day of the
year. It is the day Sergeant Caleb Martin of
Kingsmarkham CID confiscates a replica gun
from his son's school briefcase. It is the day
he will lose his life in a bank robbery, and
the first link in the chain of events that
will lead to a number of deaths. When three
people are discovered shot at Tancred House,
Chief Inspector Wexford comes to believe there
is a connection between the two apparently
unrelated crimes. But only the
seventeen-year-old daughter of one of the
victims survives to provide the most confusing
of clues. Wexford is much taken with Daisy
Flory - especially after a rift which has
occurred between him and his favourite
daughter, Sheila. But this unusual feeling
does not prevent Wexford's deductive powers
from functioning with their customary
intuitive precision … O-R92 |
| 1994 |  |
SIMISOLA:
There are only eighteen black people living in
Kingsmarkham. One is Wexford's new doctor,
Raymond Akande, who took over the retiring Dr
Crocker's practice. When the doctor's
daughter, Melanie, goes missing, the Chief
Inspector takes more than just a professional
interest in the case. Melanie had only just
left university, and, unable to find a job,
had been to sign on social security. She
disappeared somewhere between the Benefit
Office and the bus stop. Or at least no one
saw her get on the bus when it came. According
to her parents, Melanie was happy at home. She
had recently broken up with her boyfriend,
but, until now, there had been no cause to
worry about her. And no one liked to voice the
suspicion that something dreadful might have
happened, that Melanie might be dead ....
Against a background of rising unemployment
and social change, Wexford is involved in a
case which tests not only his powers of
deduction, but his basic beliefs and
prejudices. O-R94 |
| 1995 |  |
BLOOD LINES and
Other Stories: Behind the quiet
patterns of everyday life, lie the frailties
and desires, the deceptions and guilty secrets
of ordinary men and women. In this powerful
new collection of long and short stories Ruth
Rendell probes their lives with unerring and
disturbing insight. BLOOD LINES (DCI Wexford);
LIZZIE'S LOVER; SHREDS AND SLIVERS; BURNING
END; THE MAN WHO WAS THE GOD OF LOVE; THE
CARER; EXPECTATIONS; CLOTHES; UNACCEPTABLE
LEVELS; IN ALL HONESTY; THE STRAWBERRY TREE.
O-R97 |
| 1997 |  |
ROAD RAGE:
A by-pass is planned in Kingsmarkham that will
destroy its peace and natural habitat for
ever. Dora Wexford joins the protest, but the
Chief Inspector must be more circumspect:
trouble is expected. As the protesters begin
to make their presence felt, a young woman's
badly decomposed body is unearthed. Burden
believes he knows this murderer's identity but
Wexford is not convinced. Furthermore, having
just become a grandfather, he is struggling to
put aside his familial responsibilities and
emotions in order to do his job. The case
progresses, the protest escalates. And
alarmingly, a number of people begin to
disappear, including Dora Wexford ...O-R98 |
| 1998 |  |
HARM DONE:
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. The residents of the Muriel
Campden Estate are up in arms, and even
prepared to take the law into their own hands
... Chief Inspector Wexford is not only
concerned very personally with the effects of
violence and prejudice, but is involved with a
new programme called Hurt-Watch, to help the
victims of domestic violence. His daughter,
Sylvia, the social worker, and never his
favourite, has come to work nearby in a refuge
for battered women, called The Hide. Her
marriage is also in difficulties, although her
husband has never raised a hand to her. They
are merely incompatible. Other women in
Kingsmarkham are not so lucky, and, after
those early disappearances, two far more
serious crimes are committed which will affect
the lives and attitudes of police and public
alike. O-R99 |
| 2002 |  |
THE BABES IN THE
WOOD: 'I've just heard a crazy thing,
thought it might amuse you. You look as though
you need cheering up.' Burden seated himself
on the corner of the desk, a favourite perch.
Wexford thought he was thinner than ever. 'A
woman phoned to say she and her husband went
to Paris for the weekend, leaving their
children with a - well, teen-sitter, I
suppose, got back last night to find the lot
gone and naturally she assumes they've all
drowned.' 'That's amusing?' 'It's pretty
bizarre, isn't it? The teenagers are fifteen
and thirteen, the sitter's in her thirties,
they can all swim and the house is miles above
the floods.' There hadn't been anything like
this kind of rain in living memory. The River
Brede had burst its banks, and not a single
house in the valley had escaped flooding. Even
where Wexford lived, higher up in
Kingsmarkham, the waters had nearly reached
the mulberry tree in his once immaculate
garden. The Subaqua Task Force could find no
trace of Giles and Sophie Dade, let alone the
woman who was keeping them company, Joanna
Troy. But Mrs Dade was still convinced her
children were dead. This was an investigation
which would call into question many of
Wexford's assumptions about the way people
behaved, including his own family ...O-R02 |
| 2005 |  |
END IN TEARS:
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. Sylvia has always been a cause for
concern. Living alone with her two children,
she is pregnant again. What will happen to the
child? The relationship between father and
daughter has always been uneasy. But the
current situation also provokes an emotional
division between Wexford and his wife, Dora.
One particular member of the local press is
gunning for the Chief Inspector, distinctly
unimpressed with what he regards as
old-fashioned police methods. But Wexford,
with his old friend and partner, Mike Burden,
along with two new recruits to the
Kingsmarkham team, pursue their inquiries with
a diligence and humanity that make Ruth
Rendell's detective stories enthralling,
exciting and very touching. O-R05 |
| 2007 |  |
NOT IN THE FLESH:
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 cannot reveal the
precise cause of death. The only clue is a
crack in one of the dead man's ribs. The
police computer stores a long list of missing
persons. Men, women and children disappear at
an alarming rate, something like 500 every day
nationwide. So Wexford knows he is going to
have a job on his hands to identify the
corpse. And then, only twenty yards away from
the woodland burial site, in the cellar of a
disused cottage, another body is found. 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 murders are
connected and to track down whoever is
responsible. O-R07 |
| 2009 |  |
THE MONSTER IN
THE BOX: Wexford had never told
anyone. The strange relationship, if it
could be called that, had gone on for years,
decades, and he had never breathed a word
about it. He had kept silent because he knew
no one would believe him. None of it could
be proved, not the stalking, not the stares
or the conspiratorial smiles, not the
killings, not any of the signs Targo had
made because he knew Wexford knew and could
do nothing about it. 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 had their suspicions
that her husband was guilty, no one was
convicted. Another woman was strangled
shortly afterwards, and every personal and
professional instinct told Wexford that the
killer was still at large. And it was Eric
Targo. A psychopath who would kill again ...
As the Chief Inspector investigates a new
case, Ruth Rendell looks back to the beginning
of Wexford's career, even to his courtship
of the woman who would become his wife. The
past is a haunted place, with clues and
passions that leave an indelible imprint on
the here and now. O-R09
|
| 2011 |  |
THE VAULT:
‘Don’t forget,’ Wexford said, ‘I’ve lived in a
world where the improbable happens all the
time.’ However, the impossible has happened.
Chief Inspector Reg Wexford has retired. He
and his wife, Dora, now divide their time
between Kingsmarkham and a coach-house in
Hampstead, belonging to their actress
daughter, Sheila. Wexford takes great pleasure
in his books, but, for all the benefits of a
more relaxed lifestyle, he misses being in the
law. But a chance meeting in a London street,
with someone he had known briefly as a very
young police constable, changes everything.
Tom Ede is now a Detective Superintendent, and
is very keen to recruit Wexford as an adviser
on a difficult case. The bodies of two women
and two men have been discovered in the old
coal-hole of an attractive house in St John’s
Wood. None carries identification. But the
man’s jacket pockets contain a string of
pearls, a diamond and a sapphire necklace, as
well as other jewellery valued in the region
of £40,000. It is not a hard decision for
Wexford. He is intrigued and excited by the
challenge, and, in the early stages, not
really anticipating that this new
investigative role will bring him into extreme
physical danger. Note: This is the sequel to A
SIGHT FOR SORE EYES - 1998.
O-R08/11, RR08/23 |
| 2013 |
 |
NO MAN'S NIGHTINGALE:
Sarah Hussain was
not popular with many people in the community
of Kingsmarkham. She was born of mixed
parentage - a white Irishwoman and an
immigrant Indian Hindu. She was also the
Reverend of St Peter's Church. But it comes as
a profound shock to everyone when she is found
strangled in the Vicarage.
Sarah Hussain was not
popular with many people in the community of
Kingsmarkham. She was born of mixed
parentage - a white Irishwoman and an
immigrant Indian Hindu. She was also the
Reverend of St Peter's Church. But it comes
as a profound shock to everyone when she is
found strangled in the Vicarage. A garrulous
cleaner, Maxine, also shared by the
Wexfords, discovers the body. In his
comparatively recent retirement, the former
Detective Chief Inspector is devoting much
time to reading, and is deep into Edward
Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire. He has little patience with Maxine's
prattle. But when his old friend Mike Burden
asks if he might like to assist on this case
as Crime Solutions Adviser (unpaid), Wexford
is obliged to pay more precise attention to
all available information. The old instincts
have not been blunted by a life where he and
Dora divide their time between London and
Kingsmarkham. Wexford retains a relish for
solving puzzles and a curiosity about people
which is invaluable in detective work. For
all his experience and sophistication,
Burden tends to jump to conclusions. But he
is wise enough to listen to the man whose
office he inherited, and whose experience
makes him a most formidable ally.
A garrulous cleaner, Maxine, also shared by the Wexfords, discovers the body. In his comparatively recent retirement, the former Detective Chief Inspector is devoting much time to reading, and is deep into Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He has little patience with Maxine's prattle. But when his old friend Mike Burden asks if he might like to assist on this case as Crime Solutions Adviser (unpaid), Wexford is obliged to pay more precise attention to all available information. The old instincts have not been blunted by a life where he and Dora divide their time between London and Kingsmarkham. Wexford retains a relish for solving puzzles and a curiosity about people which is invaluable in detective work. For all his experience and sophistication, Burden tends to jump to conclusions. But he is wise enough to listen to the man whose office he inherited, and whose experience makes him a most formidable ally. - See more at: http://www.randomstruik.co.za/books/no-man039s-nightingale/5171#sthash.nO4MIuG3.dpuf Sarah Hussain was
not popular with many people in the community
of Kingsmarkham. She was born of mixed
parentage - a white Irishwoman and an
immigrant Indian Hindu. She was also the
Reverend of St Peter's Church. But it comes as
a profound shock to everyone when she is found
strangled in the Vicarage.
A garrulous cleaner, Maxine, also shared by the Wexfords, discovers the body. In his comparatively recent retirement, the former Detective Chief Inspector is devoting much time to reading, and is deep into Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He has little patience with Maxine's prattle. But when his old friend Mike Burden asks if he might like to assist on this case as Crime Solutions Adviser (unpaid), Wexford is obliged to pay more precise attention to all available information. The old instincts have not been blunted by a life where he and Dora divide their time between London and Kingsmarkham. Wexford retains a relish for solving puzzles and a curiosity about people which is invaluable in detective work. For all his experience and sophistication, Burden tends to jump to conclusions. But he is wise enough to listen to the man whose office he inherited, and whose experience makes him a most formidable ally. - See more at: http://www.randomstruik.co.za/books/no-man039s-nightingale/5171#sthash.nO4MIuG3.dpuf Sarah Hussain was
not popular with many people in the community
of Kingsmarkham. She was born of mixed
parentage - a white Irishwoman and an
immigrant Indian Hindu. She was also the
Reverend of St Peter's Church. But it comes as
a profound shock to everyone when she is found
strangled in the Vicarage.
O-R08/13
A garrulous cleaner, Maxine, also shared by the Wexfords, discovers the body. In his comparatively recent retirement, the former Detective Chief Inspector is devoting much time to reading, and is deep into Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He has little patience with Maxine's prattle. But when his old friend Mike Burden asks if he might like to assist on this case as Crime Solutions Adviser (unpaid), Wexford is obliged to pay more precise attention to all available information. The old instincts have not been blunted by a life where he and Dora divide their time between London and Kingsmarkham. Wexford retains a relish for solving puzzles and a curiosity about people which is invaluable in detective work. For all his experience and sophistication, Burden tends to jump to conclusions. But he is wise enough to listen to the man whose office he inherited, and whose experience makes him a most formidable ally. - See more at: http://www.randomstruik.co.za/books/no-man039s-nightingale/5171#sthash.nO4MIuG3.dpuf |