Tato britská autorka proslula svými psychologickými thrillery a detektivními příběhy. Ve svých dílech mistrně zkoumá temné stránky lidské psychiky a motivace zločinu. Její stylistická obratnost a schopnost vytvářet napínavé zápletky čtenáře vtáhnou do spletitých případů a odhalování pravdy.
A special edition of A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell. Featuring an introduction by James Ellroy. On Valentine's Day, four members of the Coverdale family were murdered in the space of fifteen minutes. Their housekeeper, Eunice Parchman, shot them one by one in the blue light of a televised performance of Don Giovanni. When the police arrest Miss Parchman two weeks later, they discover a second tragedy: the key to the Valentine's Day massacre, a private humiliation Eunice Parchman has guarded all her life. A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Special Edition
Ein heimliches Versteck aus Kindheitstagen, ein grauenerregender Fund und ein mörderisches Geheimnis, das viel zu lang verborgen war ... London, gegen Ende des zweiten Weltkriegs: Vier Kinder entdecken in ihrer unmittelbaren Nachbarschaft einen Tunnel, der zu ihrem Geheimversteck wird, bis im Sommer 1944 einer der Väter davon erfährt und ihnen das Spielen dort verbietet. Sechs Jahrzehnte später: Bauarbeiter finden in einer Blechkiste zwei skelettierte Hände – eine stammt von einem Mann, die andere von einer Frau. Die Entdeckung lässt die Freunde von damals wieder zusammenkommen, um der Polizei unter die Arme zu greifen. Möglicherweise haben sie damals etwas gesehen, was ihnen nicht wichtig erschien. Nach und nach kommt ein lang zurückliegendes Verbrechen ans Licht, in das sie tiefer verwickelt sind, als sie es jemals für möglich gehalten hätten …
New and uncollected tales of murder, mischief, magic and madness. Ruth Rendell was an acknowledged master of psychological suspense: these are ten (and a quarter) of her most chillingly compelling short stories, collected here together for the first time. In these tales, a businessman boasts about cheating on his wife, only to find the tables turned. A beautiful country rectory reverberates to the echo of a historical murder. A compulsive liar acts on impulse, only to be lead inexorably to disaster. And a wealthy man finds there is more to his wife's kidnapping than meets the eye.Atmospheric, gripping and never predictable, this is Ruth Rendell at her inimitable best. The stories are: Never Sleep in a Bed Facing a Mirror; A Spot of Folly; The Price of Joy; The Irony of Hate; Digby's Wives; The Haunting of Shawley Rectory; A Drop Too Much; The Thief; The Long Corridor of Time; In the Time of his Prosperity; and Trebuchet.Introduction from Sophie Hannah.
"When Carl sells a box of slimming pills to his close friend Stacey, inadvertently causing her death, he sets in train a sequence of catastrophic events which begin with subterfuge, extend to lies, and culminate in murder. In Rendell's dark and atmospheric tale of psychological suspense, we encounter mistaken identity, kidnap, blackmail, and a cast of characters who are so real that we come to know them better than we know ourselves. Infused with her distinctive blend of wry humour, acute observation and deep humanity, this is Rendell at her most memorable and best."
Anita's narrow white hand with the long nails painted pastel pink, the man's brown hand equally shapely, the fingers slightly splayed.'Beneath the green meadows of Loughton, Essex, a dark network of tunnels has been dug.
When Grace and her brother Andrew inherit their grandmother's house in Hampstead, they decide to move in together. It seems the obvious thing to do.There's one thing they've forgotten though: what if one of them wants to bring a lover into the house? When Andrew's partner James moves in, it alters the balance - with almost fatal consequences.
No Man's Nightingale: the eagerly anticipated twenty-fourth title in Ruth Rendell's bestselling Detective Chief Inspector Wexford series. 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.
'Someone had told Dex that the Queen lived in Victoria. So did he, but she had a palace and he had one room in a street off Warwick Way. Still he liked the idea that she was his neighbour.' Dex works as a gardener for Dr Jefferson at his home on Hexam Place in Pimlico: an exclusive street of white-painted stucco Georgian houses inhabited by the rich, and serviced by the not so rich. The hired help, a motley assortment of au pairs, drivers and cleaners, decide to form the St Zita Society (Zita was the patron saint of domestic servants) as an excuse to meet at the local pub and air their grievances. When Dex is invited to attend one of these meetings, the others find that he is a strange man, seemingly ill at ease with human beings. These first impressions are compounded when they discover he has recently been released from a hospital for the criminally insane, where he was incarcerated for attempting to kill his own mother. Dex's most meaningful relationship seems to be with his mobile phone service provider, Peach, and he interprets the text notifications and messages he receives from the company as a reassuring sign that there is some kind of god who will protect him. And give him instructions about ridding the world of evil spirits . . . Accidental death and pathological madness cohabit above and below stairs in Hexam Place.
