Razor-sharp dialogue. Plots that catch and hold like a noose. These are the hallmarks of crime legend Ruth Rendell. From Doon with Death, now in a striking new paperback edition, is her classic debut novel -- and the book that introduced one of the most popular sleuths of the twentieth century.There is nothing extraordinary about Margaret Parsons, a timid housewife in the quiet town of Kingsmarkham, a woman devoted to her garden, her kitchen, her husband. Except that Margaret Parsons is dead, brutally strangled, her body abandoned in the nearby woods. Who would kill someone with nothing to hide? Inspector Wexford, the formidable chief of police, feels baffled -- until he discovers Margaret's dark secret: a trove of rare books, each volume breathlessly inscribed by a passionate lover identified only as Doon. As Wexford delves deeper into both Mrs. Parsons’ past and the wary community circling round her memory like wolves, the case builds with relentless momentum to a surprise finale as clever as it is blindsiding. In From Doon with Death, Ruth Rendell instantly mastered the form that would become synonymous with her name. Chilling, richly characterized, and ingeniously constructed, this is psychological suspense at its very finest.

    Sloan of the Callehsire C.I.D. makes his first appearance here as he looks into the murder of a nun at the Convent of St. Anselm. First published in 1966, The Religious Body was Aird's first book and immediately established herself as one of the leading exponents of the post-WWII English traditional mystery.

    An impossible crime. A murderer on the loose.A body is discovered deep in a cave beneath the Yorkshire Dales. Leading the investigation into the mysterious death are experienced DCI Jim Oldroyd and his partner DS Carter, a newcomer from London.The deceased is Dave Atkins, well known throughout the village but not well liked. While there is no shortage of suspects, the details of the crime leave Oldroyd and Carter stumped. How did Atkins’s body end up in such a remote section of the cave? When someone with vital information turns up dead, it becomes clear that whoever is behind the murders will stop at nothing to conceal their tracks.Oldroyd and his team try to uncover the truth, but every answer unearths a new set of questions. And as secrets and lies are exposed within the close-knit community, the mystery becomes deeper, darker and more complex than the caves below. Revised edition: Previously published as The Body in Jingling Pot, this edition of The Body in the Dales includes editorial revisions.

    With the exception of his chosen career, too sordid for his blue-blooded family to condone, his life has been safe and predictable. But then he meets Detective Sergeant Kate Wakefield — beautiful, willful, and nearly half his age. When Hetheridge saves the outspoken, impetuous young detective from getting the sack, siding with her against Scotland Yard's powerful male hierarchy, his cold, elegantly balanced world spins out of control. Summoned to London's fashionable Belgravia to investigate the brutal murder of a financier, Hetheridge must catch the killer while coping with his growing attraction to Kate, the reappearance of an old flame, and the secret that emerges from his own past.

    But when more corpses turn up daily, each victim killed in a bizarre manner, it seems that a serial killer is at play, using the city's landscape as his game board.An Embarrassment of Corpses is a clever mystery featuring a cast of British eccentrics and a plot that twists and turns to its comical conclusion.

    1929 genteel country house guests are shocked by the death of their famous guest, world traveler Mountjoy, in a bathtub. Suspects include his quiet (but extremely competent) fiancee Eleanor, pompous Alastair and forceful son Garde, engaged to lovely Dorothy, plus curious naturalist Carstairs.

    To solve the "Lady of the Lake" mystery, and save a woman unjustly accused, Sussex Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond must find two missing letters attributed to Jane Austen, and defy his superiors.

    But she hardly expected it to include murder, blackmail and unrequited love. Or to involve a certain Chief Inspector Markby, a middle-aged divorcee with an emotional history as unfortunate as her own.A material witness to the only case of murder the Cotswold village of Westerfield has ever seen, Meredith also finds herself acting as mother-confessor to the bride-to-be, who is clearly not telling the whole truth about her involvement with the dead man. Steering a path between her duty to the police and loyalty to her cousin's family is not easy; even for someone with Meredith's considerable diplomatic skills. And especially as her personal enquiries into events in Westerfield start to disinter past affections Meredith would far rather leave buried - and to provoke new ones she's not at all sure she can cope with ...

    He drains his fifth pot of morning tea, and glances outside, where a young, plain woman picks her way between the piles of horse-dung towards his front door.March Middleton is Sidney Grice's ward, and she is determined to help him on his next case. Her guardian thinks women are too feeble for detective work, but when a grisly murder in the slums proves too puzzling for even Sidney Grice's encyclopaedic brain, March Middleton turns out to be rather useful after all...Set in a London still haunted by the spectre of the infamous Spring-heeled Jack, THE MANGLE STREET MURDERS is for those who like their crime original, atmospheric, and very, very funny.

    Aunt Sabrina invites her to Essex England, for help with the Order of the New Dawn. Aunt Jagger beats the servants to suicide, and someone feeds her Death mushrooms. Next door, Sir Charles photographs a fresh body in an archaeological dig, and seeks his killer.

    Scandal abounds when it becomes clear that the only people with any motive to murder him are the only people who had the opportunity - because the President's Lodging opens off Orchard Ground, which is locked at night, and only the Fellows of the College have keys

    Fearing dismissal, Maisie is shocked when she discovers that her thirst for education is to be supported by Lady Rowan and a family friend, Dr. Maurice Blanche. But The Great War intervenes in Maisie’s plans, and soon after commencement of her studies at Girton College, Cambridge, Maisie enlists for nursing service overseas.Years later, in 1929, having apprenticed to the renowned Maurice Blanche, a man revered for his work with Scotland Yard, Maisie sets up her own business. Her first assignment, a seemingly tedious inquiry involving a case of suspected infidelity, takes her not only on the trail of a killer, but back to the war she had tried so hard to forget.

    Feared but not loved, Manderson has no one to mourn him when the gardener at his British country estate finds him facedown in the dirt, a bullet buried in his brain. There are bruises on his wrist and blood on his clothes, but no clue that will lead the police to the murderer. It will take an amateur to—inadvertently—show them the way. Cheerful, charming, and always eager for a mystery, portrait artist and gentleman sleuth Philip Trent leaps into the Manderson affair with all the passion of the autodidact. Simply by reading the newspapers, he discovers overlooked details of the crime. Not all of his reasoning is sound, and his romantic interests are suspect, to say the least, but Trent’s dedication to the art of detection soon uncovers what no one expected him to find: the truth. Delightfully irreverent yet ingeniously plotted, Trent’s Last Case is widely regarded as a masterwork of the mystery genre.

    As they playfully recreate the ritual of the Black Dudley Dagger, someone dies. Pathologist George Abbershaw suspects foul play, and when a vital item is mislaid, a gang of crooks hold the guests hostage. Will they escape the house – what did happen to the Colonel – and just who is the mysterious Mr Campion? Neither the story nor Albert Campion is quite as vapid and slow as you might expect....apa in US as THE BLACK DUDLEY MURDER, 1929

    There is nothing noir about the world of Ulf Varg, Detective Inspector in the Sensitive Crimes Department of the Criminal Investigation Authority for the city of Malmö, Sweden. Ulf is concerned with odd, but not too threatening crimes, such as a stab wound to the back of the knee caused by an unknown hand, young women who allow their desperation for a boyfriend to get the better of them, and peculiar goings-on in a spa on Sweden's south coast.Of course, Ulf is a Swedish detective, and Swedish detectives, by convention, lead lives beset with problems of one sort or another. For a start, there is his name: Ulf means “wolf” in modern Swedish, and Varg derives from the Old Norse word for “wolf”. But his character is far from vulpine: Ulf is a sympathetic, well-educated, and likeable man, with a knowledge of and interest in Scandinavian- and modern art. He has a dog named Marten, the only dog in Sweden capable of lip-reading (but only in Swedish). Martin becomes depressed and needs treatment. Dogs in Sweden are apparently particularly prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). But this is summer—so there must be something else going on.Ulf has a number of colleagues into whose lives we gain insight. There is Anna, married to an anaesthetist, but very fond of Ulf; Erik, whose sole interest is fishing; Carl, whose father is a famous Lutheran theologian who has written a book on Danish philosopher Kierkegaard; then there is Blomquist from the uniformed branch, who goes on and on about his health problems but seems to have extraordinary luck in investigations. There is also Ulf's psychotherapist, Dr. Svensson, whose observations on Ulf's life—and many other topics—enlightens...or possibly confuses.The Department of Sensitive Crimes is the first full-length novel in the Detective Varg series.