Ruth Rendell

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...

Eunice Parchman, the housekeeper, shot them down on a Sunday evening while they were watching opera on television. Two weeks later she was arrested for the crime. But the tragedy neither began nor ended there...

On a shopping trip, Eugene Wren came across an envelope containing money. Rather than report the matter to the police, he wrote a note and stuck it up on lamppost near his house: found in Chepstow Villas, a sum of money between 80 and 160 pounds. Anyone who has lost such a sum should apply to the phone number below. This note would link the lives of a numberof very different people.

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.

A businessman boasts about cheating on his wife, only to find his own back to the wall. A beautiful country rectory reverberates to the echo of a historical murder. A compulsive liar finds herself caught out by an act of impulsive revenge. Atmospheric, mysterious and never predictable, these are among the nine short stories of dark deeds and heart-stopping suspense collected here for the first time.

A chance meeting in a London street, with someone he had known briefly as a very young police constable, brings Wexford out of retirement. Tom Ede is now a Detective Superintendent, and is very keen to recruit Wexford as an advisor on a difficult case.

When Grace and Andrew inherit their grandmother's house in Hampstead, they decide to move in together. It seems the obvious thing to do: they get on well, the house is large, and neither of them likes partying or loud music. There's one thing they've forgotten though: what if one of them wants to bring a lover into the house?