Ruth Rendell was an exceptional crime writer, and will be remembered as a legend in her own lifetime. Her groundbreaking debut novel, From Doon With Death, was first published in 1964 and introduced the reader to her enduring and popular detective, Inspector Reginald Wexford, who went on to feature in twenty-four of her subsequent novels.With worldwide sales of approximately 20 million copies, Rendell was a regular Sunday Times bestseller. Her sixty bestselling novels include police procedurals, some of which have been successfully adapted for TV, stand-alone psychological mysteries, and a third strand of crime novels under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. Very much abreast of her times, the Wexford books in particular often engaged with social or political issues close to her heart.Rendell won numerous awards, including the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for 1976’s best crime novel with A Demon in My View, a Gold Dagger award for Live Flesh in 1986, and the Sunday Times Literary Award in 1990. In 2013 she was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence in crime writing. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.Ruth Rendell died in May 2015. Her final novel, Dark Corners, was published in October 2015.

"When many of the literary novelists of our time are forgotten, Ruth Rendell's books will remain, and future generations will see that not only did she keep her readers on tenterhooks with every book, she also wrote stories which held up a mirror to her times." Daily Mail "Rendell's work, mapping the manic and malevolent extremes of human behaviour, was distinguished by terse yet elegant prose and sharp psychological insights." Daily Telegraph "Rendell's novels have been a major force in lifting crime writing out of genre fiction and into both cutting-edge and mainstream literature." -- Jeanette Winterson "Ruth Rendell: one of the all-time greats." -- Sophie Hannah "Rendell was a prolific and hugely popular writer of intricately plotted mystery novels that combined psychological insight, social conscience and, not infrequently, teeth-chattering terror." New York Times