Ruth Rendell, the British crime writer

My favorite by far is "A Dark Adapted Eye," which she released under her pseudonym Barbara Vine.

R1 is it more of a psychological study than a crime mystery?

A Dark Adapted Eye

It's a psychological study AND a crime mystery.

A Judgement in Stone. Best opening line ever.

A Dark-Adapted Eye is a masterpiece. Rendell was a genius a creating sinister situations, but sometimes her resolutions were unsatisfying. Not in that book; it’s perfect. But it’s not by any means a conventional mystery.

Any body like A Demon In My View?

R7, the opening scene to that book: brrrrrr . . . .

R8 creepy indeed, such a distasteful scenario. But if the researcher hadn't moved in and destroyed his mannequin...

Like both her detective novels with Inspector Wexford and the others without a regular cast. Then there are the psychological suspense works written as Barbara Vine. Vies with P.D. James as the best crime fiction writer of their era.

R10 - Tiberius was great as Inspector Wexford! They are all on YouTube. I remember a scene where he obviously fell out of character (as did the other person) laughing about something, and they kept it in.

Love her books, and have read several. Particularly appreciated her talents in “A Sight for Sore Eyes.” She gets into the heads of some truly disturbing characters. Thanks for the recommendations above, will put “A Dark-Adapted Eye” on my list to read.

I love the Inspector Wexford series. A wonderful mix of crime mystery and a detective who lives in his small city British world. Love them, also loved P.D. James. Miss them both. I don't have the same devotion to the crime/suspense writers of today. I wish I did. Something is lacking in many of the ones I read. I often reread the old ones.

I fell in love with her in 1987 when I read An Unkindness of Ravens. My faves though are A Dark-Adapted Eye (wonderful Tv adaptation w/Helena Bonham Carter), A Fatal Inversion, A Judgement in Stone, Talking to Strange Men, The Bridesmaid, & Kissing the Gunner’s Daughter.

Her characters are so eccentric but so relatable. While reading The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy, I totally related to one of the female characters, who didn’t want strangers, even her friends, in her house, she felt like they were contaminating it. She also was privately sleeping with a guy whom she publicly pretended to hate, & used to stage fights with him (in college I pretended to hate this one chick & would always argue with her around other people, but we were secretly friends). Not to spoil the book, but I also learned of the Rockland porn bros at the same time, & it felt like everything in the book was paralleling real life!

I’ve read everything of hers, & stuck it out through The Blood Doctor even though I’m very squeamish about hemophilia. I almost passed out a few times while reading it, even though it’s not graphic, I was just overthinking it I guess.

I too am a big fan, of both the Wexford books but even more so the stand alone Rendells and particularly the Barbara Vines. Like others above, A Dark Adapted Eye is a particular favourite along with A Fatal Inversion, The Keys to the Street, King's Solomon's Carpet and Asta's Book. One of the Rendells, which I can't recall the name of, has a horrible ending where the girl who you have much sympathy for heads off to walk along an old railway track, not knowing it will take her through a tunnel where you know the killer is lurking/waiting. Many of her short stories are also excellent, such as The New Girlfriend, Loopy, Thornapple, The Orchard Walls and The Man Who Was the God of Love.

When it comes to police procedurals I think her and PD James are equally enjoyable and talented but IMO Rendell was, overall, the better writer. She was more skilled at building suspense and creating characters that could both attract and repel you. I also admired how she could hand you a dollop of information that would simultaneously help illuminate the central puzzle while adding another layer of mystery. Sort of one step forwards but half a step back.

What's the best of the Wexford books?

I agree, R16, that Rendell was the better writer, and more imaginative. I love me some PD James mysteries, but Rendell’s have a certain je n’sais quois.

My favourite Rendell/Vine books are: Asta’s Book, A Fatal Inversion, A Sight for Sore Eyes, The Crocodile Bird, Talking to Strange Men, The House of Stairs… there is another story that creeped me tf out, about a loner guy living in a flat/bedsit in a house in London who was obsessed with a girl, murdered her, and kept her in a wardrobe until she started to smell. It shows his psychological disintegration, but I can’t for the life of me find it or remember if it was Ruth Rendell (Barbara Vine) or PD James!

I used to read mysteries to try to “train” myself out of my ADHD, by sticking it ‘til the end without glancing at the last few pages through force of will, and both Ruth Rendell’s and PD James’s detective stories were great for this (as were Agatha Christie’s), but Rendell’s books were better written and more engaging (which isn’t to say PD James’s weren’t!)

I used to love the Wexford/Dalgliesh series they showed on PBS, as well.

^^was this “A Demon in my View”?

Ah yes, A Sight for Sore Eyes is excellent R18. And two Barbara Vines that I forgot to add to my list of favourites are The Brimstone Wedding and The Chimney Sweep's Boy. The 'burning of the body' section in Brimstone is harrowing. With A Sight ..., one weird thing is I read the Wexford story The Vault, which was lying around at a friend's place I was visiting, and kept thinking 'This is really familiar but it's different. I know I've read it but bits seem to be missing', not realising at the time that it was a (sort of) follow up to A Sight ... Maybe my confusion explains why I very rarely figure out 'whodunnit'.

I've got a few Rendell/Vines on my kindle that I've not read, including her last book Dark Corners, so this thread has inspired me to crank it up. I hope it is good - like many authors (looking at you Mrs Mallowan) some of her later ones are not so tight, which is understandable since she was getting older and possibly less sharp. I enjoyed The Blood Doctor but I figured out what the mystery was quite early on. Have you read any of the short stories? Loopy or Thornapple are good places to start if not, but all are well written and some are excellent.

A very enjoyable crime/detective book is Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz that some here might like if they've not come across it. It combines two storylines: an Agatha Christie type 'cosy' mystery, which is the latest/last book by a now deceased author that is missing its end, and the search for that ending by his editor, which draws her into a 'real life' murder.

Ha, R16 - I just bought Magpie Murders with one of my many audiobook credits; I’ll listen to it as I restore furniture outside this summer! I really only know Horowitz as a YA author (I’m a high school librarian).

You’ve got me wanting to stock up my kindle (or peruse the used bookstore) for those great Rendell/Vine books for the coming winter (which, where I live, is nonstop grey skies and rain).

I don’t know if you’re the OP, but I thank you for helping reignite my interest in mysteries. :)

I’m so sad I even used to love reading Anne Perry’s Victorian mysteries (Anne Perry is the nom de plume of Juliet Hulme, one of the murderous girls made famous internationally via the film “Heavenly Creatures”. In my defence, I did do an English degree with a focus on the Victorians…)

No I am not the OP but I'll thank him or her for starting this thread. And that's a 'spooky' coincidence re Magpie Murders. I've got Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club and Stuart Turton's The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle on the bedside table but I think I'll do a couple of Ruth's first. In addition to Dark Corners I've got The Child's Child and The Water's Lovely, neither of which I've read. Plus I could probably re-read some where I've forgotten how it all played out.

I'm a bit 'scared' of Evelyn Hardcastle as it sounds like it is either going to be incredibly gripping or completely confusing. From what I've read and what a couple of friends have told me it seems best to just go along for the ride and not try to figure out exactly what is happening or has happened. If you know nothing about it, look it up and you'll likely understand my fear. Having said that, I avoided watching Memento for years as I am often the one asking 'Who is he?', 'Why did they say that?' etc but was fine following the plot. And Turton's follow-up to Evelyn, The Devil and the Dark Water, also got excellent reviews. So many mysteries out there, and that's not even counting Dyatlov!

Re the best Wexfords R17, maybe try one of the ones in the middle, when she was probably at the height of her powers, although all of them are very readable. As you probably know, they're your more classic crime novels, with an inspector and his offsider. The non-series books and the Barbara Vines are more psychological, tending to be whydunnits rather than whodunnits, often with a very unsettling mounting sense of dread.

Finally, before this turns into a novella, are you in the southern hempishere R21? Your mention of the approaching winter made me think perhaps so. I'm in Australia and it is often frosty , foggy and windy in my part so the perfect weather for some cosy crime, or not so cosy in Rendell's case.

PS Never read Anne Perry but knew one of those girls had become a crime writer. Ironic eh. Heavenly Creatures was a terrific movie. And PPS: the whole Scandinavian noir genre is one I've yet to explore so if you've any reccos there ...

Oh no, R22 - I’m in British Columbia. Our warm weather just started [bold]yesterday[/bold], but we’re always anticipating the coming grey, drizzily darkness!

Aha. Still, perfect for crime and crumpets by a crackling fire, with a mug of tea or glass of cognac. I quite like dark drizzly weather so long as I don't need to venture out into it too often or for too long.

It’s so strange (to me) that I started out reading her Inspector Wexford police procedurals and loathed and avoided the Barbara Vine psychological ones and one day it just flipped and I couldn’t tolerate another book with the same characters, the same police routines, the predictable mannerisms (no matter how well written), picked up Barbara Vine and fell in love with all the weirdness. I love how every book is different (but always strange). It takes me a few pages to get into them and then I can’t put them down.

Well there you go - opposite hemispheres and opposite approaches: I started with A Dark-Adapted Eye and then read the other published Vines (probably King Solomon's Carpet was the most recent at the time). I then found out she was RR so read some stand-alone titles before I ever picked up a Wexford. And that would remain my order of preference. I still think A Dark-Adapted Eye is a great novel, whatever genre label people give it. As you say, at her best she is hard to put down. A few people didn't like that A Dark... doesn't give you a neat, everything explained ending but that didn't bother me - real life has its unknowns (Dyatlov again!) so books can too. Have you read Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger? It's Gothic rather than crime but like Rendell, she's an excellent storyteller.

I was much the same with Dame Agatha: read the non detective ones before any Poirot or Marple books, and some of those non series ones, like The Pale Horse, Murder is Easy and Endless Night, are among my favourite Christies.

Was amused to read that she's also the Baroness Rendell of Babergh! What a name.

She is actually one of my favorite writers, OP. It is a shame that, at her peak, some of her novels were not more recognized outside of crime fiction. A Dark Adapted Eye and A Judgment in Stone, my favourites, have crime in them but if written by a different writer wouldn’t necessarily, in my view, end up in the crime section.

I would recommend the novellas Hearstones and The Strawberry Tree, both with great first person narrators. For the wexfords, her middle period is the best, but actually her first, From Doon with Death is very good.

It is a pity that after her death she is not more recognized. In her later years there was a slight decline in quality. Current event, social themes and modern behavior were very much used in her novels, so i think that as she aged she became less atuned to the times, which is normal.

I don't think I've read Heartstones but The Strawberry Tree is very good. I've read a lot over a long period of time so can't always recall them, but looking up the plot of Heartstones it doesn't ring a bell. Have you read any of the short stories I mentioned in R16? They are all good but Loopy (about a nerdy young man who becomes a bit too comfortable in the wolf costume his mother makes him for his role in a Red Riding Hood pantomime) and Thornapple (a boy experiments with making poisons from ingredients he picks in the woods) are particularly good. The latter has a nice twist.

I think she manages to straddle both being popular with many readers of crime/detective stories but is also a bit of a writer's writer. By that I mean she seems to be held in high regard by a lot of other authors who recognise that she often transcended the genre. When she was at the top of her game she really was an excellent writer who pulled everything together - plot, characters, settings and mystery and suspense - into a very readable, satisfying and stylish whole.

Bump for more classic crime novels

Some Rendells I really like, two of which have already been mentioned, but I'll bring them up again:

The House of Stairs: the female narrator falls in love with a beautiful young woman who really doesn't like to be told "no." Some fascinating details on how to kill someone by having them play Russian roulette (it's harder than you might think).

The Lake of Darkness: two men buy a winning lottery ticket. One, a deeply repressed man who is infatuated with the other winner but can't admit it, decides it would be better if he kept all of the winnings. Consequences ensue.

An Unkindness of Ravens: an Inspector Wexford mystery and a more conventional whodunit, but cleverly has an all-female cast of suspects.

Great selection, r31, I especially like the House of the Stair which uses the plot of The Wings of the Dove to great effect.

R29, i have read all of Rendell except for the last one, some many times over.

She did elevate crime writing. Comparisons with PD James (whom i also liked a lot) are i think unfair, as James almost never de deviated from a very specific formula, much closer to the traditional whodunnit. They were contemporaries and of the same generation and had in common their deeply dislike of Agatha Christie, from which they did everthing they could to dissociate themselves from.,

I don't know about Rendell's thoughts on Christie but I did once see James on some TV show where she was praising Christie's skill at plotting and rebutting the claim that she often didn't play fair with her readers. I tend to agree with that claim as often the solution rests on information that the reader cannot know, or they have been fed false info that is impossible to see as a red herring, such as the wringing of the canary's neck in Murder is Easy. I still enjoy her books though for the light read that they are.

Perhaps the distaste both Rendell and James may have had for Christie is that her characters were really just chess pieces to be moved around and bumped off. It's rare that someone's murder prompts any real anguish in the other characters, who usually just exclaim 'How ghastly!'. James and Rendell cared much more about the victims of murder - both dead and living - and the why as much as the who whereas Christie just used individuals as a part of her plots. There's a few exceptions but exceptions they are.

I think it is fair to compare Rendell's skills as a writer with James's precisely because they were contemporaries who often ploughed much the same field. In terms of the traditional detective story I'd consider them equals, and maybe even give James a slight edge, but the fact that Rendell went beyond that, and did so so well, makes her, IMO, the 'better' writer. It's like James stuck to what she knew she did very well (much like Christie) whereas Rendell stretched herself. So maybe adventurous is a more apt word than 'better', though I do like Rendell's writing more, Perhaps too I have a bit of a bias because Rendell was a Labour peer while James was Conservative, and that sometimes comes through in their writing, though the two were friends in real life. Anyway, whatever our opinions on relative merits etc it is good to find other fans of these women and crime fiction in general here on DL.

PS I also really like The Lake of Darkness R31, and The House of Stairs. Let's face it, I pretty much like them all, just to varying degrees. Lake ... is kind of classic Rendell where a decision or deception that can seem relatively harmless in the big scheme of things sets in motion a chain of events that ends in unintended consequences.

Interesting thread. I started reading Rendell/Vine in the 1970s and never stopped. I am now in the process of rereading P.D. James, whose novels are certainly the equal of Rendell's.

Colin Dexter and Reginald Hill are also, IMO, masters of the mystery form--not as creepy/acute as Rendell's writing as Barbara Vine and not as conservative of traditional CofE values as P.D. James.

Rendell is definitely one of the more talented British mystery writers. But I have never found anyone who has replaced the enjoyment of Agathas books. Anne Perry is talented, albeit a reformed psychopath ( well hopefully reformed...). Barry Maitland is decent. I tried Elizabeth George a few years back and thought she was horrible. Too flowery. Almost like a romance novel.

I read this line in connection with another writer (possibly Dorothy Sayers?) but I think it applies here too: Elizabeth George fell in love with her character, Inspector Lynley.

R37 Yeah. That was exactly the problem. It made a lot of his narratives boring because she had idealized him so much. He was the epitome of beauty and chivalry and grace, etc. It was almost like a teenage girls fantasy.

I think 'enjoyment' is the key word there R37 - nearly all of hers are fun to read though the last few (Postern of Fate and Elephants Can Remember) are a bit of a slog. I've heard them called 'Famous Fives for grown-ups' which seems apt and they seem to have been a bit of a bridge between kid's books and adult fiction for a lot of readers.

Have you read any Minette Waters? I enjoyed her first half a dozen books. Quite dark so more Ruth than Agatha, but very readable. I've not read any Elizabeth George.

One Golden Era writer I've enjoyed is Cyril Hare. His short stories are really good and so were the couple of novels I've thus far read. Some publishers, the British Library I think, has been bringing out Golden Era titles and they are not expensive, especially on kindle. I've got quite a few still to read, including one by AA Milne called The Red House Mystery which is meant to be good.

I tried a few Agatha Raisin's and though they were entertaining enough I disliked the title character so gave up on her.

R39 I've not read any Minette waters or Cyril Hare but I would certainly be willing to give them both a try. Thanks for the rec.

Yes, I’ve read several Minette Walters and really enjoy them. In fact I’m reading one now.

Nicci French (a husband and wife team? at any rate, two people) is also reliably good. They have a character series but I prefer the independent ones.

For mid century golden age, Josephine Tey, The Franchise Affair and Brat Farrer.

^ All British writers.

^ Farrar

Yes Brat Farrar was very good (I like both mysteries AND horses!) as was her one about Richard III (The Daughter of Time) where a police detective laid up in hospital decides to revisit the story of Richard and the princes in the Tower and try to solve it. That book apparently played a role in an historical re-evaluation of Richard as Shakespeare's evil twisted villain.

Except that the re-evaluation was nonsense. He was indeed a villain.

Tudor slander!

I'll heartily second the upthread recommendations of Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse mysteries, my faves being Last Bus to Woodstock, The Dead of Jericho, Last Seen Wearing, The Riddle of the Third Mile, and The Secret of Annexe 3.

And also Reginald Hill's somewhat comical series with detectives Dalziel and Pascoe, faves including Deadheads, A Killing Kindness and Exit Lines. There's also a recurring gay character, lovable Lt. Wield.

And not previously mentioned but I also loved and devoured Julian Symon's Hitchcockian British thrillers when I was younger - he was at the height of his powers in the 1970s and 80s. Some of his best titles: The Belting Inheritance, The Blackheath Poisonings, The Man Who Killed Himself, The Plot Against Roger Rider, The Narrowing Circle.

None of these writers wrote cozy mysteries, they're all comparable to Rendell imho. Sadly, many of these titles are probably out of print by now, at least in the US, though they can also be purchased second hand or found in libraries.

So many interesting comments. I would recommend Frances Fyfield mysteries since we're heralding British mystery writers. She is not particularly well known but I've enjoyed some of her books. "She has won several awards, including the Crime Writers' Association Duncan Lawrie Dagger for Blood from Stone in 2008 and the Silver Dagger for Deep Sleep. In addition, her novel, Safer than Houses was nominated for the Duncan Lawrie Dagger in 2006. She also writes psychological thrillers under the name of Frances Hegarty, among them, The Playroom, Half Light and Let's Dance." [Wiki]

Love this thread. Will think of my own recommendations for both shortly. Surprised no one has mentioned No Night Is Too Long or Gallowglass by Barbara Vine. Ruth Rendell and PD James were great friends. Here’s a transcript of their discussion on crime fiction. It’s clear Rendell is not a fan of Christie.

Thanks a lot for that R48 - very interesting to read their viewpoints. I did keep meaning to mention Gallowglass as it was probably the third Vine I read. I also enjoyed No Night Is Too Long but don't recall much about it except that there's a strong gay element and maybe it revolves around classical music or opera?

I liked how they talk about the background behind their books: the facts about London's Tube and life in a monastery added a lot to my enjoyment of King Solomon's Carpet and Death in Holy Orders. I once worked in Hyde Park so the Regent's Park stuff in Keys to the Street was very familiar: the professional dog walkers, the park denizens, the gates and lodges etc.

Great posts, here. R33, , i agree with most of what you’ve written, including adventurous being more apt than better in the comparison between Rendell and James. I meant that I generally find James much more formulaic, with a cast of characters closed n in a certain, usually professional, setting. I also don’t particularly like Dalgliesh, which is a somewhat pretentious creation. But what she did, she did very well. Shroud for a Nightingale i ve read countless times, it is creepy, with great characters and a great finale. I have all her books as well.

Forgot about Night is too Long. One thing that Rendell did was to include gay and lesbian characters in a lot of her books, long before it became fashionable to do so. I started reading her in my late teens and it was important at the time, maybe that is another reason for liking her so much.

Re Christie I understand that Rendell and James were the generation right after her, so it is typical that they try to dissociate themselves and do their own thing. But i think some of the criticism is unfair and Christie literary merits are underrated and she was not a mere writer of clever puzzles. But that is another conversation.

I understand that James (or Baroness James of Holland Park) was quite politically conservative. Not sure about Rendell.

Thanks for the response R50. Yes I also think Christie is underrated as a writer. She knew her limitations and largely stuck to her formulas but she is immensely readable, and isn't that something that all (or most) writers aspire to - if we don't care what happens next, if the story at the book's heart hasn't whetted our interest, why bother? So yeah I like her a lot for the pleasure her country houses and cyanide in the champagne give. I do agree with James' assessment that none of her actual murders could ever ve successfully carried out. A good example is Death on the Nile. For that murder to work every single thing had to go as they planned and that was just not believable. But I still love it.

I read all sorts of stuff and while I enjoy elegant writing, I am most drawn to good stories well told, such as the short stories of Somerset Maugham and Saki (who I can re-read over and over).

Re Rendell's politics R51 she was a solid Labour supporter and it was as a Labour peer that she took her seat in the House of Lords. So her and James were political opponents but professional admirers of each other's work and personal friends.

My pleasure, R52. I still think James view on Christie is unfair and limited. In her book Talking about Detective Fiction (which from your comment you seemed to have read) she has some pages on Christie and every praise is followed by a stronger criticism. For instance, she writes “Agatha Christie hasn’t in my view had a profound influence on the later development of the detective story. She wasn’t an innovative writer and had no interest in exploring the possibilities of the genre” or “she employs no great psychological subtlety “, statements which are untrue . Both Rendell and James much preferred Dorothy Sayers, who i find dated and whose snobbishness puts me off (Lord Peter Wimsey makes me cringe).

Having said this, completely agree on Death on the Nile and the craziness of the whole plan. But the brilliance of Christie is that actually the plan doesn’t work and people have to be continually bumped off because they were witnesses. There are other stories with simpler murders, but others as complicated . Another one is another favourite of mine, A Murder is Announced, which is a planning nightmare.

How could anyone who dreamed up the plots of And Then There Were None (or whatever you want to call it), The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Murder on the Oriental Express (to mention just 3), as well as inventing the characters of Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple not be considered someone with a "profound influence" on the mystery genre?

Listen, I've reread some of PD James and her books really don't hold up very well at all. There was nothing innovative about her writing at all.

And Dorothy Sayers is utterly unreadable today.

I know I’ve read Fyfeld but she is hard to find. Thanks for reminding me.

If you are looking for out of print books, Thrift Books is an excellent resource. They compile from independent booksellers. They ship fast and never a problem except once the book I ordered about Paris was actually in French. They credited me immediately.

I've owned a copy of Fyfield's UNDERCURRENTS forever that I must have bought used but still haven't read. I remember reading a couple of her other books years ago (1980s) and enjoying them, though I can't remember the titles.

Fyfield fan at r47, would you by chance have read UNDERCURRENTS?

Peter Dickinson is another favorite author. He did several mysteries in the 80s, sometimes with a continuing character. There’s always something a bit odd about his books, not cozy, although they might appear to be at first glance. He also wrote a lot of YA so make sure it’s not that. He’s a really good writer.

It’s frustrating that pre-2005- ish books except for classics aren’t available as ebooks from the library.

This thread is giving me so many great suggestions for mystery/crime writers I've never read. I love Ruth Rendell too and a few of the novels named here as favorites I need to read. Thanks to all.

Among the Wexford novels i would highlight A Guilty Thing Surprised (which is quite schocking) and Kissing The Gunner’s Daughter (where she was at the height of her powers, and also schoking).

R59, thank you, I was just going to mention A Guilty Thing Surprised, which has at its core an unusually intense, and totally forbidden, relationship.

[quote] and Murder on the Oriental Express

Oh, [italic]dear.[/italic]

Also love the Wexfords: Shake Hands Forever, A Sleeping Life, Some Lie and Some Die, Murder Being Once Done and Speaker of Mandarin, all I believe from the 1980s.

Great thread, thanks to so many of our readers!

The BBC aired a good adaptation of "No Night is Too Long" 20 years ago. It's currently available to stream on Freevee (Amazon's ad-supported version of Prime Video).

Note: The below trailer has German subtitles, but the movie itself doesn't.

Tim Curry once referred to her as his favorite mystery writer.

Was the adaption of "Demon In My View" with Anthony Perkins any good?

John Harvey is pretty good too but I'll admit it's been a while since I last read him.

What's with the English and mystery novels?

No R53 I've not read the PD James book on crime though I'd like to. I go that info from the transcript of James and Rendell talking about their own and each others work that R48 provided - it is well worth reading for their takes on crime fiction and other writers. I was pleased to see James have kind words for Cyril Hare who I recommended somewhere above - what I've read of his was very good Golden Era stuff. I agree re A Murder is Announced - it's another that hinges on just everything going exactly according to a very complicated plan: fuse the lights, run out quickly, shoot X, run back in. Her killers must spent many nights pacing the floor while planning how to make everyone think the second ringing of the dinner gong was actually the first.

My main gripe with her is her treatment of working-class characters. The maids are always either adenoidal and stupid or sly and prone to blackmail, which never works out well for them. And they always react to the murder with the relish 'common to their class'. At least they fucking react and don't just ring the bell for more tea. And they are always swiftly eliminated as suspects so she can concentrate on the ladies and gentlemen. But those are just gripes as I've read most of them multiple times and still have fun doing so.

I dunno why the English have a thing for murder and mystery R68. George Orwell's Decline of the English Murder essay is an enjoyable look at the pleasure the British public take in a 'good murder'. I do know that if ever I tried to write one it would need to be a Golden Era throwback - no way am I grappling with DNA, mobile phone tracking, security cameras, modern forensics etc. It would be a country house weekend where the phone lines are cut off and the assorted guests are stranded because of a heavy snowfall. That's probably not been done before.

Love Ruth Rendell but that’s based in only two books of hers I’ve read. Interesting to think of the difference between the English mystery genre and the american pulp noir. Love Chandler and his kind, seedy, sweaty and sexy. He gives me a hardon that English mystery writers do not.

I liked Unsuitable Job for a Woman by PD James. Instead of her Dalgliesh policeman character, it was a woman starting out as a private detective. She only wrote two books in that series which was a pity because I liked them much more than the Dalgliesh ones.

A very golden age writer who has not been mentioned is Ngaio Marsh. Her Oxford-educated police detective is —inevitably— the younger brother of a baronet, but not coy like Peter Wimsey. Most of the mysteries have some connection with the theatre or the arts. They’re very well-written. Marsh is the same generation as Christie, Sayers and Allingham.

Ngaio Marsh was a kiwi wasnt she?

R22 - I recommend reading the books by Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdardottir. My favorite is the gripping and disturbing "Silence of the Sea". It takes place on a yacht with a crew and a family aboard.

I'm currently reading a book of an Icelandic author Ragnar Jonasson called "Snow Blind". It's the first book of the Ari Thor series.

R71, i like Ngaio Marsh, to a degree. Her books are very enjoyable but she in my view she has two flaws: one, the murderer is never someone nice, or the pair of romantic lovers, etc, you immediately discard half of the cast. In this she is the opposite of Christie, where, as PD James grudgingly acknowledges, the only certainty is death. Second, in most of her books you can see exactly the tricky moment where she is setting the identity of the murder before or at the time the murder occurs. I rather be surprised than right. I’ve read all of Christie and only once have identified the murderer early on. Have read 12 Marshs, and guessed at least half of them.

As for Allinhgam, i find her prose so overwritten that becomes almost unreadable. Can’t understand her reputation and have read half her books, but didn’t enjoy them. The Fasihion in Shrouds (a very good title, she was good at that), has a speach so misogynistic involving rape that I can’t believe justifiable even given the time it was written.

R69, you should try it, it is good. Even when you don’t agree with her, it is very well written and expands the interview with Rendell. It is more or less of the same time.

I read all the Ngaio Marsh books long ago, I started in high school and I’m pretty bad at guessing the murderer’s identity.

(although one time I did guess it as soon as the setting shifted to the island or whatever it was, and it made me angry because everyone said what a great mystery and best seller it was and it was so frickin’ obvious, I felt cheated. That book was The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)

I can’t tolerate Allingham either. Hate the set up, hate the characters. More coy than Sayers. Ugh.

Yes, Ngaio Marsh was from New Zealand.

Just out of interest R74, which Christie was it? I also only ever figured out the who and why once but I can't recall which book it was! As for the how, forget it. As discussed above the method is usually so complicated and so reliant on timing that it would never work in reality.

Despite my lack of success when it comes to solving whodunnits I can honestly say that I don't put much effort into it. I might think 'Oh maybe it's Colonel Mustard ...' or similar but I generally just go along for the ride and let the sleuth do all the heavy thinking.

Same here r77. The couple times I’ve guessed with Christie, it’s usually some slight distancing in the way she wrote the character but never trying to sort out the machinations of the murder. Like the character could be someone everybody loves but there will be a brief mention of them kicking a puppy when they were ten. If a young female character has two suitors, it will be the quiet, steady, less flashy one who wins her hand, he is either a doctor, layer, or a vet. The rich, charming heir burns bright but then burns out. Insanity runs in that family, you know, it’s whispered that the mother had to be institutionalized.

Yes, insanity running in families was a feature in some stories, as was clearing someone's name of the taint of a murder they were suspected of, or imprisoned or hung for, before their relation can marry. I know that's in Crooked House and I think at least one or two others. And yep, there may be some very slight clue as to something in someone's past that points to them being worthy of suspicion. Particularly if you find yourself in St Mary Mead: remind Miss Marple of the butcher's boy who stole people's milk money and that's it - you're definitely a wrong un. Maybe not a murderer, but something unsavoury about you will come to light.

Also, I read somewhere that in the years immediately following her first husband leaving her, if there was a handsome young man in the story there was a good chance he'd be the killer. Agatha's revenge I guess. Speaking of handsome young men, just before this thread started I was watching some episodes of Poirot and Miss Marple and the guy who plays Lucifer in the TV series makes a very good-looking inspector in Dead Man's Folly while Stephen Mangan, though not as obviously hot, has a certain charm and sexiness about him as the inspector in At Bertram's Hotel.

Yay! This thread has become all about me, me, me!!!

R77, it was Lord Edgware Dies. I was around 12 and it ner happened again. Not one of the more difficult ones, considering the plot. I reread it for the first time recently and is not one of her best, but i was surprised for the for the gay subtext, which I didn’t remember at all.

Indeed it has, r80, i love Rendell but i find her books so good that they become difficult to discuss, if that makes sense. But i do wonder why, since her death, she is not more talked about and/or read.

Any others?

This thread prompted me to try "A Sight for Sore Eyes." I'm enjoying it quite a bit--it's three different stories about people with different psychological problems in England, and you know all three will come together at the end of the book, but you don't know how.

What's hard is that the characters are so horrible you do get a bit tired of them.

Do y’all remember the titles of the Rendell books you’ve read or are you looking them up.? I rarely remember the titles so I have to read the first page or a synopsis to find out if I’ve read it already.

I look behind me at my book case and there they are, r84, with all the other R authored books.

Yes, I'm that kind of guy.

Always loved Rendell but I don't think her books always fare as well upon re-reading. Once you know the plot twists and endings, there isn't all that much to savor. The tension simply isn't there any more.

Is there a plot twish in A Fatal Inversion?

Yes! Her best book in my opinion.

R87 im listening to it on audible whilst waiting for my flight, nearing the end now!

"Adar Kadap Tedeye"

R85, funnily enough my experience is different. I can read a Judgement in Stone, A Dark-adaped eye and countless Wexfords of her good period even when I remember the plots. She was particular good on certain turns of phrase about our behavior and I don’t find that turning old. She was very good about the odd relationships between people, firemds and family. She is also very good at nostalgia and the past. I just said above her books are difficult for me to analyze but stand corrected,

^ sorry for the terrible repetions, Rendell must be turning in her grave.

I'd tend to agree with that R85. I've re-read A Dark-Adapted Eye because I think it is such a good book and would like to re-read The Brimstone Wedding because I remember the basics but not the details but yeah, on the whole it is the unravelling of the mystery at the same time as the tension and dread is building that underlies her best work and you won't get that experience on a re-read. With an Agatha it's different as they are more like a half-hour sitcom while Rendell is a mini-series.

I think I'd like to re-do A Judgement in Stone though just to see again how it all unfolds. Someone early in the thread pointed out what a good opening line it has:

“Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write”.

And I could probably give The Lake of Darkness (the lottery ticket one) a second shot.

I often don't remember the titles R84, like with the two I mentioned just above, so yeah, I need to be reminded of the basic outline. At least that's the case with the Rendells. Most of the Barbara Vines I know what they were basically about but that's probably just because there are less of them!

There are two good movies based on Judgement in Stone. The Housekeeper and La Ceremonie. Acc to Wiki, Rendell very much liked the latter.

Yeah, we are picking up threads, but take a judgement in stone where you know from the start where it is going to end, on a re-read you actually become more tense with the knowledge. A part of you always hopes for a different ending but the fact the characters are doomed gives an extra dimnsion. To everyone in this thread who hasn’t read her , that is my recommendation, the whole story is in the first line and still you can’t keep reading. Among other things it is one of the best books on class warfare there is (the chabrol movie helps with Bisset and Huppert).

R93 I loved La Ceremonie and it seems French directors love Ruth Rendell source material!

I wonder if Alfred Hitchcock ever considered optioning any of her books? Though I suppose he was almost finished directing by the time she wrote some of her best books.

Just starting A Judgement In Stone this evening!

They did overlap at the end of his life, r96, but I don’t know if Rendell was enough of a household name at the time to come to his attention. Actually, some of her standalone novels are reminiscent of Patricia Highsmith. Rendell’s are more psychologically grounded. She is very good but Highsmith was original in that some of her characters behavior make absolute no sense but because of that are more realistic, in real life not all decisions are logical.

In A Suspension of Mercy, Highsmith has a failed crime writer simulate the murder of his wife. He keeps in character, acting guilty, even when interrogated by the police when she goes missing (the reader knows she’s alive). But that is perfectly logic for the character.

I envy you, r97, reading it for the first time. Tell us what you think afterwards.

Wonder what Hitchcock would have done with the Ripley books.

Well, Hitch did a terrific job with Highsmith's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, which is about as close to a Ripley book as one can get without actually being one.

Hitch improved on the Highsmith original by miles. Can't begin to say how disappointed I was finally reading Strangers on a Train.

I could be wrong about this but it seems to me Hitchcock often optioned novels that weren't terribly well-known. Years ago I found a copy of Victor Canning's 1972 novel The Rainbird Pattern which became the source for Family Plot, his final 1976 film. The book was fun, good not great, but I was fascinated to see how Hitch improved upon the source material.

In any case, I wouldn't suppose that Rendell's lack of mainstream fame would have kept Hitch off her books if he was interested. I imagine he had development people (or maybe just his wife Alma) scouting material all the time, often in pre-published drafts before they were in book stores.

And, thinking it through now, I wonder if his dissatisfaction directing Rebecca, a huge bestseller in which he was forced to be faithful by producer David O Selznick, made him wary about doing films that were overly familiar to the general public. I'm unsure of Strangers on a Train's status when the film was made.

Just finished my first Inspector Wexford book this morning. I will be devouring this series for the foreseeable future. I actually created a Word doc listing all the authors and titles mentioned here. I might never leave my apartment again!

R103 which Wexford was it?

R104 - the very first one, From Doon With Death. I'm going to read the series in order (via my Kindle). Really enjoyed it!

Have you read Edith's Diary by Highsmith R102? It's decades since I did but from memory, it was excellent. A bit Rendellian if I recall correctly. She was also very good at setting up a situation of events spiralling out of control. There was one where a family pet brings in a human hand (or finger) while they were having a dinner party that was also good, as were the Ripley books. Ripley's quite a creation - a killer, and pretty much amoral, and yet you sort of side with him.

Enjoy the journey R104. Are you also going to tackle the non-series and Vine ones? If so it is probably a good idea to start at the beginning with them as well. Like any prolific author, some are much better than others but I don't think any are bad as such. And as I said a few times upthread, most of the short stories are excellent.

r106, I did read and enjoyed Edith's Diary years ago in the early 1980s when I discovered Highsmith, and I agree with you, it is very Rendellian. (love that!).

Last winter I re-read The Talented Mr. Ripley and loved it more than I expected, amazed at how many details I'd forgotten. Also watched Purple Noon and the Minghella film for comparison and neither stack up to the novel, IMHO. So, as I said upthread, I was very disappointed when I finally read Strangers on a Train and found it not nearly as great as the film. I then went on to read Highsmith's The Tremor of Forgery and ploughed through waiting for something to happen, which it never really did. Hugely disappointing! I've put Highsmith on hold for now.

An author I lately love who I find to be sort of similar to Highsmith is Emily St. John Mandel, most famous for the dystopian novel Station Eleven. But most of her other books are stories of misdeeds going unpunished and have a fantastic tension and dread running through very ordinary peoples' lives that I find very engaging. I think her best books are the recent The Glass Hotel and an early one called The Singer's Gun. Hard to categorize as they're not quite thrillers or murder mysteries as such, but I'd recommend them to Rendell and Highsmith fans.

Thanks for that recco Constant Reader. She sounds right up my sinister alley so I'll check her out. Not the dystopian one so much, but definitely the dread running through ordinary lives types. I think that is perhaps part of what adds to the tension in Rendell and Highsmith as opposed to Agatha. We're not likely to find ourselves at an English country house where our host gets coshed on the head but it is (just) conceivable we might find ourselves in a situation like the more modern writers describe. Not at all likely I know, but more believable, and we can feel we 'know' these people whose lives are thrown into turmoil.

Have you read any Sarah Waters? I'd highly recommend The Little Stranger to anyone reading this thread who likes a good story with mounting tension etc, which I assume we all do. It's more Gothic/(possibly) haunted house but that is just part of it - it has as its background the changing situation in England post-WWII and its (unreliable?) narrator is a doctor from a working-class background who becomes involved with the inhabitants of a crumbling manor house that has obsessed him since childhood. It's very well written, creepy in parts, and a real page turner. Some people complained that the ending wasn't clear but I thought the last sentence told you exactly what had happened. It's the only one I've read but I have The Paying Guests up soon and relatives who read it said it was terrific. Fingersmith is also highly recommended but I stupidly watched the TV adaptation so now know what the twist is - and a bloody good, almost jaw dropping twist it is too. Often you can see it coming, but with this I didn't at all though in retrospect, clues were there. That's good mystery writing eh - when they spring a surprise on you that you think 'Of course, that's why ...'.

I loved The Paying Guests, r108! Probably my favorite Sarah Waters though I also enjoyed Fingersmith; really felt she achieved a Dickensian style voice in that one. It's been years since Waters' last book (was it The Paying Guests?).....I wonder what she's been up to??

Ah well that's even more incentive the open The Paying Guests when I get a couple of others 'out of the way'. You're right about it being her last and eight years ago ago at that. Her next one may well be War and Peace length. Or perhaps she's just kicking back and enjoying her royalties and BBC and Hollywood money.

With Rebecca being mentioned above, I think My Cousin Rachel is another excellent book when it comes to ambiguity. And I like its opening line of 'They used to hang men at Four Turnings in the old days'.

I think one of the things this thread has shown is the pleasure that we posters get from good storytelling, genres aside. With that in mind, anyone with half an hour to kill should look up Saki's The Storyteller. It's available online, as are all his short stories, and it's a little gem, as are most of his.

I read one of the Ripley books years ago and it was so repulsive, I’ve avoided Highsmith ever since.

I read the first Ripley after seeing the film years ago and was so disappointed with the book version of Ripley, who was far more cold blooded a killer, that I never read the others. Probably should try again sometime.

Loved Gallowglass. Such a sexy episode - saw it on PBS. but can't remember who's in it (apologies if this is upthread - I'm falling asleep and just happened to notice the thread)

R106 - Thanks! Yes, I'll read others beyond the Wexford series, probably taking breaks from the series now and again as a palate cleanse. Will likely try some books by the other authors mentioned here as favorites too. My list grows every time I check this thread! I've read a bunch by Ruth Rendell in the past, mainly the dark, psychological crime novels, which I adored so I'm primed already for more of those reads.

R108 - Adding Sarah Waters to my list - I enjoy gothic mysteries. I've been binge-reading Barbara Michaels (who also writes as Elizabeth Peters). She does throw in romantic entanglements too but they usually aren't the focal point of the story, thankfully. Her stories can be a bit predictable, but also comfortable and engaging, which I definitely needed during the pandemic. A few more recent gothy flavored mysteries that I absolutely loved: The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd and Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth; I also enjoyed The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James and Tripping Arcadia by Kit Mayquist. I like to mix it up between the older/classic writers and the more recent novels. I do have quite a stable of Did Not Finish too, though, so it can be a crapshoot at times. I'm excited to sink into a juicy phase of great Rendell reads since I already love her work.

Well I'm getting through A Judgement In Stone and "Old Parchment Face" is a suspicious devil, isn't she? The reformed prostitute from Shepard's Bush who runs the post office is very amusing at times.

Enjoying it so far!

I love Ruth Rendell, must re-read as it’s been a while - a Judgement in Stone is a masterpiece. An Unkindness of Ravens and A Demon in My View.

When I first read PD James I did enjoy them but cannot imagine revisiting Dalgleish. I liked her non-series stories and wish she’d written more Cordelia Grey - An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and Skull Beneath The Skin I will likely reread.

If people are not familiar with “tartan noir” faves Scottish crime writers Val McDermid and Denise Mina, I highly recommend them both.

Well I finished A Judgement In Stone and thoroughly enjoyed it!

SPOILER:

At first I was sympathetic to "Old Parchment Face", first with that bloody annoying, malingering father of hers "EU-in-Nice, mother of Timothy". Then I felt the family all reared her condescendingly or ignored her.

That switched as I read further, all of them apart from the boy tried to help her and she was given a lot of freedom. I loved the character of Joan from the post office and how she becomes more unhinged through the novel.

I didn't completely buy that Eunice had totally snapped enough in the final minutes before she started the rampage but that's a minor quibble.

A thoroughly well written and thrilling novel, with surprisingly subtle foreshadowing for a work that gives the solution away in the opening line!

Bump for more reading ideas

Two recent mysteries I've enjoyed are The Thursday Murder Club and The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman. Maybe mentioned upthread? They're both set at a posh English retirement village where 4 very sharp elderly residents try to solve a local murder in each book. The books much cleverer than my description and not as twee and cozy as they sound. Similar perhaps in tone to the old classic Reginald Hill series with Inspectors Dalziel and Pascoe.

Osman has said that there will be 2 more novels in the series and apparently Steven Spielberg has acquired the rights for films or a mini-series.

Yes Constant Reader The Thursday Murder Club is another on my ever expanding list. I mentioned Magpie Murders upthread as one I really enjoyed - have you read it? And another two I have but have yet to read are The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Deep Water by Stuart Turton. Evelyn's the one I said I was a bit 'scared' of because it sounds quite confusing though many people love it. The Devil ... sounds more straightforward but is also meant to be a very good page-turning mystery. Below is the Goodreads synopsis of Evelyn. One of the things that seems most interesting is how each day he awakens in someone else's body so he sees everything from a different perspective each time, but some of the people whose bodies he inhabits are friends and others are foes. As I said upthread when I talked about it, a few friends who have read it said to just enjoy the ride and not send yourself mad trying to keep track of everything that is happening.

Aiden Bishop knows the rules. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until he can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest at Blackheath Manor. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others. With a locked room mystery that Agatha Christie would envy, Stuart Turton unfurls a breakneck novel of intrigue and suspense.

For fans of Claire North, and Kate Atkinson, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a breathlessly addictive mystery that follows one man's race against time to find a killer, with an astonishing time-turning twist that means nothing and no one are quite what they seem

I read The Magpie Murders when it first came out and enjoyed it but I remember almost nothing about it. I find that oddly happens sometimes to me with books that are bingeable - read so fast there's no time for reflection, I guess, and nothing sticks. I'm looking forward to the Masterpiece Mystery version with Lesley Manville which should be premiering on PBS soon. I'm curious to see if it all comes back to me as I watch, lol.

I'll check out the titles you recommend. Are they both by Stuart Turton. Thanks. First I've heard of them.

And you mention Kate Atkinson. Loved her Jackson Brodie mysteries and her other books even more, though the last Brodie and last non-Brodie were really bad. What's happened to her? I really hope she's taking some time off to come back with something spectacular.

Yeah both are by Stuart Turton. Evelyn is set in an isolated country house and combines an Agatha-type murder mystery with a time slip component as our hero awakens each day in a different body with seven days to solve/prevent Evelyn's murder and free himself from the cycle he's trapped in. The Devil and the Dark Water (sorry not Deep) has an interesting synopsis which I've pasted in below, again from Goodreads. The Kate Atkinson reference is from Goodreads, not me, but now you've given me another recco!

Magpie Murders is the two books in one: a dead author's last manuscript, which is a cosy mystery type, but is missing its solution and the mystery happening 'now' as his editor tries to locate the missing section and finds herself possibly investigating a murder.

Below is the Goodreads Devil and Dark Water outline. I've got it but have yet to read it but it sounds intriguing and the two friends I loaned it to both really liked it.

It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Traveling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent.

But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. A twice-dead leper stalks the decks. Strange symbols appear on the sails. Livestock is slaughtered.

And then three passengers are marked for death, including Samuel.

Could a demon be responsible for their misfortunes?

With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent can solve a mystery that connects every passenger onboard. A mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board.

r123, if you've never read Kate Atkinson, you're in for a treat. The Jackson Brodie mysteries are great fun though perhaps more about storytelling and character than genuine whodunnits. I'd just begin with the first one, Case Histories, and see what you think.

Her other books are truly brilliant. My favorites are 2 early ones: Human Croquet and Behind the Scenes at the Museum and 2 later ones: Life After Life and a sort of sequel, A God in Ruins.

Avoid Transcription and the latest Brodie, Big Sky. Both very disappointing!

r123, if you've never read Kate Atkinson, you're in for a treat. The Jackson Brodie mysteries are great fun though perhaps more about storytelling and character than genuine whodunnits. I'd just begin with the first one, Case Histories, and see what you think.

Her other books are truly brilliant. My favorites are 2 early ones: Human Croquet and Behind the Scenes at the Museum and 2 later ones: Life After Life and a sort of sequel, A God in Ruins.

Avoid Transcription and the latest Brodie, Big Sky. Both very disappointing!

I really love Kate Atkinson, especially Life After Life and A God in Ruins, but really everything she wrote until recently. Glad I'm not the only one who was very disappointed with Transcription. I didn't think Big Sky was as bad, but I didn't love it. It's like the magic touch she had to bring a story to life is missing.

I like Horowitz quite a lot, both Magpie Murders and the Moonflower Murders. The latter has also a whole book inside which gives the clues to the real life murder. He uses a lot of Christie tropes and would be a much preferable writer for the new Poirot books than the dreadful Sophie Hannah. I give him minor points only for the identity of the murders being easy to discover in Moonflower.

He also has a series where he is the narrator, but are fiction, The Word is Murder, The Sentence is Death and A line to kill. He finds himself involved in murders taking place in London and helps a cranky detective who is the one solving the crimes, quite enjoyable.

I would guess most DLers here know that Anthony Horowitz created and wrote the scripts for the brilliant TV mystery series FOYLE'S WAR. It's some of the best TV you'll ever watch.

Which Rendell short stories are outstanding?

These are some of my favourites R129: The New Girlfriend, The Orchard Walls, Thornapple, The Man Who Was the God of Love, The Fever Tree, In All Honesty, Loopy, You Can't Be Too Careful and Fen Hall.

I had hopes for Horowitz since I loved Foyles War but the first book I picked, I read the first chapter and it was his character coming across a tv crew filming an episode of Foyles War. Like wtf? I hate that self-referencing shit.

Yeah, I'd have to admit that other than Magpie Murders, I've been disappointed with Horowitz's novels,

Looks like Kate Atkinson has a new one out in September, Shrines of Gaiety. Not a Jackson Brodie, set in the 1920's. Fingers crossed that she's found her spark again!

I hope everyone here knows it's pronounced like Rendle. Not Ren-DELL

I used to pronounce it with the dell sound, until I was watching a British show and a character said he was tucking in for the night with the new Ruth Rendell and I realized I'd been pronouncing it wrong!

I've read a number of Horowitz novels - the self-referencing works with the cranky detective (who is also named Horowitz) I can pass up, but Magpie Murders was terrific.

Anthony was asked by the Conan Doyle estate to write Sherlock Holmes stories and the first one, "The House of Silk" was, in my opinion, EXCELLENT. I did not care for a later book "Moriarity" - I thought it cruel at the end, but read The House of Silk... it felt so true to Holmes.

I'll ask a question here... years ago I read a series of police procedurals set in Dublin with a lead character McGarr. I loved these. Here in the US the books were all titled with, "The Death of..." such as, "The Death of an Irish Sea Wolf", "The Death of an Irish Tinker", etc... Author's name was Bartholomew Gill. the author died, the series ended. I've tried re-reading and wonder, "what did I see in there books? They're not as good as I remember." Anyone else read the McGarr books?

Not me. His name looked familiar, like I’d seen it on the spines of books at the library but none of the titles ring a bell.

The TV series of Magpie Murders with Leslie Manville is very good, if a little too long.

Because of this thread I reread A Guilty Thing Surprised and is as good as I remember. It has a very small cast of characters but because of this all are well rounded and original. And then, of course, there is the shock ending which you have been reading through the whole book without realizing. For people who don’t know her, it is also a very good way to start.

Rendell fans might enjoy a nifty little mystery called GENTLEMEN & PLAYERS by Joanne Harris, who wrote CHOCOLAT. It will really take you by surprise with its twists and turns until the very end.

Also, THE TENDERNESS OF WOLVES by Stef Penney.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

I have now read A Dark-Adapted Eye (took a while to get into but soon became absorbed). I felt Eden was a perfect shit to Vera but felt that the death penalty for the murder was a bit extreme, unless she failed to enter a defense.

Also finished Demon In My View, A Judgement In Stone and Fatal Inversion, all of which I loved.

Any thoughts on whether Live Flesh and No Night Is Too Long are any good?

No Night Is Too Long (or as I call it, This Novel Is Too Long) is probably my least favorite Vine/Rendell. I remember feeling it dragged on and on with little action. But there are those who love it, so I say: to each his own..

I remember furtively watching the TV version of No Night Is Too Long as a horny teen and being amazed they allowed explicit gay sex on the BBC!

Glad you enjoyed them all R140. I don't recall much of Live Flesh or No Night ... A Fatal Inversion is very good eh. One of her typical slow builds and unravelling of the mysteries.

If you're looking for a couple of non-series Rendell's, The Keys to the Street and A Sight for Sore Eyes are well worth reading. Another few Vines that I liked a lot are Gallowglass, King Solomon's Carpet, Asta's Book and The Brimstone Wedding. The last one is one of my favourite BV's.

I think Rendell's power had diminished a lot in her last 10 or 15 years, or maybe I'd just read too many of her books and she seemed to me to be repeating herself....but one of her very last ones THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (2014) was great fun if not brilliant.

One of my faves has always been A FATAL INVERSION. I've read it twice and will probably read it again in coming years. And the TV version starring a very young Jeremy Northam, Douglas Hodge and Gordon Warnecke (the Indian boy in My Beautiful Laundrette) is fabulous.

Live Flesh is a compelling story with unexpected plot twists and situations, but it did make my flesh creep, which, of course, was the author’s intention.

As I recall (I read it a few years ago), all the characters — even the ‘good’ ones — are compromised in some way, and you’re taken to a dark, dark place with no one to root for, no ‘light at the end of the tunnel,’ no ‘triumph of the human spirit.’

I think it’s worth reading as a masterful psychological thriller, but there were times when I felt dispirited by the awfulness of some of the characters.

If you can find it anywhere, Betty Fisher and Other Stories is a French film adaptation of Rendell’s novel Tree of Hands. I think the English title is Alias Betty. Good story, great characters, lots of moral ambiguity.

I remember the Spanish version of Live Flesh but am I right it is a very loose version of the novel?

R57, I am another fan of Peter Dickenson. He never is that interested in the mystery as much as what the mystery means.

I remember a scene in which a linguist has to prove that he was not a witch to an African tribe whose language has no verb to be. It is unusually rich in prepositions, so on trial he could not use logic (which depends on the verb to be) and instead has to show that his relationship to things was not that of a witch (because prepositions are about relationships, that was how they think)

And this was just a digression from the main mystery!

{SPOILER] Hindsight was his best known and the solution was when the main character realized that a death he had been mixed up with as a child might have been a murder. That is it. No figuring out who did it. Just a realization that the death might not have been an accident.

Strangers on a Train was Highsmith's first thriller and it is not very good.

But Edith's Diary, Deep Water, and A Dog's Ransom are really extraordinary. She takes her time getting you to understand the main character so when the violence finally occurs it appears completely logical . And you feel dirty because you realize that in the same situation, you might cross the line, just like her characters do.

Has anyone read Ruth Ware? I liked One By One, so I read a few of the earlier ones, In A Dark, Dark Wood, which was pretty good, and The Woman in Cabin 10 which was just okay.

I’ve read a couple by Ruth Ware. They’re sort of “devour and forget”.

I love Ruth Rendell. I've read everything she has written EXCEPT the Inspector Wexford series. What I particularly love is how she can write a book sympathetically from the villain's point of view. Like Dickens, her understanding of psychology is great.

If you haven't read the Inspector Wexford series, IMO, you're missing her best! Vignettes of small town British life with endearing characters and psychological mystery!

Over the last decade or so I had read the first three Wexfords, as well as Tigerlily's Orchids, To Fear a Painted Devil, and Dark Corners. But I picked up Judgment in Stone because of this thread, and wow! What a unique and well written book. I will have to step up my Rendell reading.

R153 I loved Demon In My View, A Fatal Inversion and Dark Adapted Eye. Just terrific!

R154 - recently started reading Dark Adapted Eye. I love it so far, but it's an uncomfortable read too, which is probably why I love it.

Heartstones was an interesting read. I would have like to see Rendell develop it as a full novel, rather than a novella.

I've only read one of her more minor works so far - "One Across, Two Down"- but thought it was great (if depressing).

Anyone enjoy Live Flesh? The Spanish movie version was quite different, and included a cock shot from the gorgeous leading man!

I just finished an early one "One Down, Two Across". The protagonist Stanley is loathsome from start to finish, planning to bump off his scornful mother-in-law Maud. Any fans?

Any read "A Sight For Sore Eyes"?

Darlings, anyone read "The House Of Quiet Death"?

I wonder if Ruth Rendell and P.D. James will be read in a 100 years like Agatha Christie still is? I think Rendell's work has a better shot at longevity than James's.

I enjoyed rereading this thread and have made a list of the authors other posters have mentioned.

Re r162, or Sherlock Holmes…still very popular. There was a book, Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, contemporary authors to Conan Doyle. I remember reading it and thinking the stories were really second-rate and the characters were dated whereas Holmes always seems modern.

Thanks for reviving this thread, r162, I would agree with your assessment but i my perception is that after her death in 2015 Rendell has been rarely mentioned and a lot of her books seems to be going out of print. There are many of them, but still. No Christie was ever out of print. I think James is still fully available. Perhaps because her books are more formulaic and Rendell were more ofthe time they were written (which was one of the reasons why i loved them).

Also, Rendell had a decline in quality in her later years. So did James (they were both quite old). Hopefully there will be a revival.

I enjoyed this thread a lot a few years ago and was thinking about Rendell vs. James today and just decided to post.

Conan Doyle and Christie did both have that spark, that special something that made their work somehow universal and approachable even as times and tastes changed around it. It's not something you can successfully reproduce, it just has to be there.

Maybe you're right about James possibly standing the test of time better due to the formulaic element. Everything I've read by Rendell has been so well written and engaging, but that doesn't necessarily mean future generations will be familiar with any of it or find it appealing if they are.

I often think publishers do elderly authors a huge disservice by continuing to publish them when the quality has drastically slipped.

No one wants to hurt the feelings of the writer (or kill their cash cow, more likely) especially when they're a beloved figure, but my thoughts always go to that first time reader who happens to have the bad luck to pick up 'Elephants Can Remember' or 'Posterns of Fate' as their first Agatha Christie and then never bothers again.

A Rendell revival would be nice. Maybe someone will make a film or series based on some of her works to attract more interest. Any suggestions for likely titles? I'm thinking A Judgment in Stone.

For now, I still have plenty of her work left to read!

Well I've come a long way since I started this thread two years ago! Just love reading your comments and following many of your recommendations here, so thank you!

Have loved A Judgement In Stone, A Fatal Inversion, Asta's Book, The Chimney Sweeper's Boy (what an ending!), King Solomon's Carpet, Brimstone Wedding, A Sight For Sore Eyes (Teddy Brex sounds delicious despite being a sociopath), A Dark-Adapted Eye, and others

Just this last month I decided to give Wexford a go. So far I've found him very likable and some good deductive work going on.

Also loved her short stories

A bit off topic, but has anyone ever read Sara Woods? I was reading a blog post about her. She was a prolific and much praised mystery writer who was first published around the time of Rendell & PD James but who has fallen out of print. Just curious if anyone is familiar with her books?

Never heard of her R167, any good?

I haven't read Woods yet, I was just wondering if anyone here had, and what they thought. I just read the blog post a few days ago and my library doesn't have anything by her. Dean Street Press is reprinting some soon.

Didn't really care for Live Flesh although it was certainly not a bad read. I just remember the Spanish movie version with the hunk who showed his cock.

Loved One Down, Two Across. Wickedly funny, a selfish loser bumping off his awful mother-in-law and her nasty friend.

The Vault had a part where she was almost taking the piss out of the writing of her genre.

A very creepy story.

Vault was Wexford solving the standalone crimes of A Sight For Sore Eyes. Very clever.

Who?

Shit your trap Dorothy, you old snob