Ruth Rendell
1930-2015
Pseudonym: Barbara Vine
 

Ruth Rendell was born in Essex. After school she became a journalist working on local newspapers. When she was twenty she married fellow journalist Don Rendell (later they divorced, and then remarried in the 1970s) and stopped work a year later when their son was born. She started to write fiction but did not approach a publisher. After she had written six novels she finally approached a publisher. She is the creator of 'Reginald "Reg" Wexford', a Chief Inspector in fictional Kingsmarkham, Sussex.

 
George Baker as Chief Inspector Wexford

Titles and year of publication:  

'Reginald "Reg" Wexford' Novels
 1) From Doon with Death  1964
 2) A New Lease of Death (US Title: Sins of the Fathers [1970])  1967
 3) Wolf to the Slaughter  1967
 4) The Best Man to Die  1969
 5) A Guilty Thing Surprised  1970
 6) No More Dying Then  1971
 7) Murder Being Once Done  1972
 8) Some Lie and Some Die  1973
 9) Shake Hands Forever  1975
10) A Sleeping Life  1978
11) Means of Evil (short stories)  1979
12) Put On By Cunning (US Title: Death Notes [1981])  1981
13) The Speaker of Mandarin  1983
14) An Unkindness of Ravens  1985
15) The Veiled One  1988
16) Kissing the Gunner's Daughter  1992
17) Simisola  1994
18) Road Rage  1997
19) Harm Done  1999
20) The Babes in the Wood  2002
21) End in Tears  2005
22) Not in the Flesh  2007
23) The Monster in the Box  2009
24) The Vault  2011
25) No Man's Nightingale  2013
Other Novels
 1) To Fear a Painted Devil  1965
 2) Vanity Dies Hard  1965
 3) The Secret House of Death  1968
 4) One Across, Two Down  1971
 5) The Face of Trespass  1974
 6) A Demon in My View (Gold Dagger Award)  1976
 7) The Fallen Curtain (short stories)  1976
 8) A Judgement in Stone  1977
 9) Make Death Love Me  1979
10) The Lake of Darkness  1980
11) Master of the Moor  1982
12) The Fever Tree (short stories)  1982
13) The Killing Doll  1984
14) The Tree of Hands (Silver Dagger Award)  1984
15) The New Girlfriend (short stories)  1985
16) Live Flesh (Gold Dagger Award)  1986
17) Talking to Strange Men  1987
18) Heartstones (novella)  1987
19) Collected Short Stories  1987
20) The Bridesmaid  1989
21) Going Wrong  1990
22) The Copper Peacock (short stories)  1991
23) The Crocodile Bird  1993
24) Blood Lines (short stories)  1995
25) The Keys to the Street  1996
26) A Dark Blue Perfume and Other Stories (short stories)  1996
27) A Needle for the Devil and Other Stories (short stories)  1996
28) A Sight for Sore Eyes  1998
29) Piranha to Scurfy and other stories (short stories)  2000
30) Adam and Eve and Pinch Me  2001
31) The Rottweiler  2003
32) 13 Steps Down  2004
33) The Water's Lovely  2006
34) The Thief (novella)  2006
35) Collected Short Stories, Volume 1  2006
36) Collected Short Stories, Volume 2  2008
37) Portobello  2008
38) Tigerlily's Orchids  2010
39) The Saint Zita Society  2012
40) The Girl Next Door  2014
41) Dark Corners  2015
42) A Spot of Folly (short stories)  2017
Novels as 'Barbara Vine'
 1) A Dark-Adapted Eye (Edgar Award)  1986
 2) A Fatal Inversion (Gold Dagger Award)  1987
 3) The House of Stairs  1988
 4) Gallowglass  1990
 5) King Solomon's Carpet (Gold Dagger Award)  1991
 6) Asta's Book  1993
 7) No Night is Too Long  1994
 8) The Brimstone Wedding  1995
 9) The Chimney Sweeper's Boy  1998
10) Grasshopper  2000
11) The Blood Doctor  2002
12) The Minotaur  2005
13) The Birthday Present  2008
14) The Child's Child  2012

More book covers

Back