A lump of concrete dropped deliberately from a little stone bridge over a relatively unfrequented road kills the wrong person. The driver behind is spared. But only for a while ... One particular member of the local press is gunning for the Chief Inspector, distinctly unimpressed with what he regards as old-fashioned police methods. But Wexford, with his old friend and partner, Mike Burden, along with two new recruits to the Kingsmarkham team, pursue...

The mysterious disappearance of two local teenagers and their baby-sitter draws Inspector Wexford into a baffling case involving dark family secrets, violence, a religious cult, adultery, and murder.

Dazzling psychological suspense. Razor-sharp dialogue. Plots that catch and hold like a noose. These are the hallmarks of crime legend Ruth Rendell, “the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world” (Time magazine). 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...

The great flute-player Sir Manuel Camargue announces his engagement to a woman 50 years his junior, and three days before the wedding, he is found drowned.

"A female Vicar named Sarah Hussein is discovered strangled in her Kingsmarkham Vicarage. The gossipy cleaning woman who discovers her body, Maxine, happens to also be in the employ of retired Chief Inspector Wexford and his wife. When detective inspector Mike Burden calls him, Wexford, intrigued by the unusual circumstances of the murder, leaps at the chance to tag along with the investigators. A single-mother to a teenage girl, Hussein was a woman...

Chief Inspector Wexford's doctor has prescribed no alcohol, no rich food and, above all, no police work. But when a young girl's body is found in a London cemetery and the local police are baffled, Wexford decides to brave his doctor's wrath and the condescension of the London police by doing some investigating of his own.

A local rock festival appears to be going off without a hitch, until the terribly disfigured body of a local girl turns up in a nearby quarry, and the prime suspect becomes charismatic rock star Zeno Vedast.