Wexford
by 25 books in this series
Follow formidable Chief of Police, Inspector Wexford, as he embarks on another psychologically thrilling case. This is crime at its absolute best, you'll struggle to put it down.
#17 - Harm Done
Readers of PD James, Ann Cleeves and Donna Leon will love this deliciously tense and suspenseful thriller from multi-million copy and SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author Ruth Rendell. An absolute page-turner you won't be able to stop reading...
'The Wexford books clearly display Rendell's great mastery of storytelling at its best' -- Sunday Telegraph
'Rendell's detective fiction stands almost alone as a chronicle of the dark side of modern life...' -- Independent
'Unputdownable' -- ***** Reader review
'Another cracker from Rendell!' -- ***** Reader review
'A masterpiece' -- ***** Reader review
'When does Ruth Rendell ever write anything other than excellent?' -- ***** Reader review
'Thought provoking and absorbing' -- ***** Reader review
*****
A young girl disappears, then another.
A notorious paedophile is released back into the community. The residents of the Muriel Campden Estate are up in arms, and even prepared to take the law into their own hands...
As a policeman, Chief Inspector Wexford is faced with the effects of violence and prejudice every day.
His daughter, Sylvia, has come to work nearby in a refuge for battered women. Her marriage is not a happy one, although her husband has never raised a hand to her. They are merely incompatible. Other women in Kingsmarkham are not so lucky...
Wexford is soon called upon to investigate two extremely serious crimes which will affect the lives and attitudes of police and innocent villagers alike...
'The Wexford books clearly display Rendell's great mastery of storytelling at its best' -- Sunday Telegraph
'Rendell's detective fiction stands almost alone as a chronicle of the dark side of modern life...' -- Independent
'Unputdownable' -- ***** Reader review
'Another cracker from Rendell!' -- ***** Reader review
'A masterpiece' -- ***** Reader review
'When does Ruth Rendell ever write anything other than excellent?' -- ***** Reader review
'Thought provoking and absorbing' -- ***** Reader review
*****
A young girl disappears, then another.
A notorious paedophile is released back into the community. The residents of the Muriel Campden Estate are up in arms, and even prepared to take the law into their own hands...
As a policeman, Chief Inspector Wexford is faced with the effects of violence and prejudice every day.
His daughter, Sylvia, has come to work nearby in a refuge for battered women. Her marriage is not a happy one, although her husband has never raised a hand to her. They are merely incompatible. Other women in Kingsmarkham are not so lucky...
Wexford is soon called upon to investigate two extremely serious crimes which will affect the lives and attitudes of police and innocent villagers alike...
#18 - The Babes In The Wood
The nineteenth book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford.
'A woman phoned to say she and her husband went to Paris for the weekend, leaving their children with a - well, teen-sitter, I suppose, got back last night to find the lot gone and naturally she assumes they've all drowned.'
There hadn't been anything like this kind of rain in living memory. The River Brede had burst its banks, and not a single house in the valley had escaped flooding. Even where Wexford lives, higher up in Kingsmarkham, the waters had nearly reached the mulberry tree in his once immaculate garden. The Subaqua Task Force could find no trace of Giles and Sophie Dade, let alone the woman who was keeping them company, Joanna Troy. But Mrs Dade is convinced her children are dead.
As he embarks upon this mysterious investigation, Wexford is forced to question many of his core assumptions about society, even about his own family...
'A woman phoned to say she and her husband went to Paris for the weekend, leaving their children with a - well, teen-sitter, I suppose, got back last night to find the lot gone and naturally she assumes they've all drowned.'
There hadn't been anything like this kind of rain in living memory. The River Brede had burst its banks, and not a single house in the valley had escaped flooding. Even where Wexford lives, higher up in Kingsmarkham, the waters had nearly reached the mulberry tree in his once immaculate garden. The Subaqua Task Force could find no trace of Giles and Sophie Dade, let alone the woman who was keeping them company, Joanna Troy. But Mrs Dade is convinced her children are dead.
As he embarks upon this mysterious investigation, Wexford is forced to question many of his core assumptions about society, even about his own family...
#19 - End In Tears
The twentieth book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford.
A lump of concrete dropped deliberately from a little stone bridge over a relatively unfrequented road kills the wrong person. The young woman in the car behind is spared. But only for a while...
A few weeks later, George Marshalson lives every father's worst nightmare: he discovers the murdered body of his eighteen-year-old daughter on the side of the road.
As a man with a strained father-daughter relationship himself, Wexford must struggle to keep his professional life as a detective separate from his personal life as husband and father. Particularly when a second teenage girl is murdered - a victim unquestionably linked to the first - and another family is shattered...
A lump of concrete dropped deliberately from a little stone bridge over a relatively unfrequented road kills the wrong person. The young woman in the car behind is spared. But only for a while...
A few weeks later, George Marshalson lives every father's worst nightmare: he discovers the murdered body of his eighteen-year-old daughter on the side of the road.
As a man with a strained father-daughter relationship himself, Wexford must struggle to keep his professional life as a detective separate from his personal life as husband and father. Particularly when a second teenage girl is murdered - a victim unquestionably linked to the first - and another family is shattered...
#20 - Not in the Flesh
The twenty-first book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford.
Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth something slightly less savoury - a human hand.
The corpse, as Chief Inspector Wexford is informed later, has lain buried for ten years or so, wrapped in a purple cotton sheet. The post mortem can not reveal the precise cause of death. The only clue to solving this mysterious murder is a crack in one of the dead man's ribs.
Wexford knows it will be a difficult job to identify the dead body. Although it covers a relatively short period of time, the police computer stores a long list of missing persons. People disappear at an alarming rate - hundreds each day.
And then, only about twenty yards away from the woodland burial site, in the cellar of a disused cottage, another body is found.
The detection skills of Wexford, Burden and the other investigating officers of the Kingsmarkham Police Force are tested to the utmost to discover whether the murders are connected and to track down whoever is responsible.
Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth something slightly less savoury - a human hand.
The corpse, as Chief Inspector Wexford is informed later, has lain buried for ten years or so, wrapped in a purple cotton sheet. The post mortem can not reveal the precise cause of death. The only clue to solving this mysterious murder is a crack in one of the dead man's ribs.
Wexford knows it will be a difficult job to identify the dead body. Although it covers a relatively short period of time, the police computer stores a long list of missing persons. People disappear at an alarming rate - hundreds each day.
And then, only about twenty yards away from the woodland burial site, in the cellar of a disused cottage, another body is found.
The detection skills of Wexford, Burden and the other investigating officers of the Kingsmarkham Police Force are tested to the utmost to discover whether the murders are connected and to track down whoever is responsible.
#21 - The Monster in the Box
The twenty-second book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford.
Wexford had almost made up his mind that he would never again set eyes on Eric Targo's short, muscular figure. And yet there he was, back in Kingsmarkham, still with that cocky, strutting walk.
Years earlier, when Wexford was a young police officer, a woman called Elsie Carroll had been found strangled in her bedroom. Although many still had their suspicions that her husband was guilty of her violent murder, no one was convicted.
Another woman was strangled shortly afterwards, and every personal and professional instinct told Wexford that the killer was still at large. And that it was Eric Targo. A psychopathic murderer who would kill again...
As the Chief Inspector investigates a new case, Ruth Rendell looks back to the beginning of Wexford's career as a detective, even to his courtship of the woman who would become his wife. The villainous Targo is not the only ghost from Wexford's past who has re-emerged to haunt him in the here and now...
Wexford had almost made up his mind that he would never again set eyes on Eric Targo's short, muscular figure. And yet there he was, back in Kingsmarkham, still with that cocky, strutting walk.
Years earlier, when Wexford was a young police officer, a woman called Elsie Carroll had been found strangled in her bedroom. Although many still had their suspicions that her husband was guilty of her violent murder, no one was convicted.
Another woman was strangled shortly afterwards, and every personal and professional instinct told Wexford that the killer was still at large. And that it was Eric Targo. A psychopathic murderer who would kill again...
As the Chief Inspector investigates a new case, Ruth Rendell looks back to the beginning of Wexford's career as a detective, even to his courtship of the woman who would become his wife. The villainous Targo is not the only ghost from Wexford's past who has re-emerged to haunt him in the here and now...
#22 - The Vault
_____
Featured in The Times Top 10 Crime Books of the Decade
The twenty-fourth book in the bestselling Detective Chief Inspector Wexford series, from the author of classic detective fiction and gripping psychological thrillers including End in Tears and Thirteen Steps Down.
The impossible has happened. Chief Inspector Reg Wexford has retired from the crime force. He and his wife, Dora, now divide their time between Kingsmarkham and a coachhouse in Hampstead, belonging to their actress daughter, Sheila.
Wexford takes great pleasure in his books, but, for all the benefits of a more relaxed lifestyle, he misses being the hand of the law.
But a chance meeting in a London street, with someone he had known briefly as a very young police constable, changes everything. Tom Ede is now a Detective Superintendent, and is very keen to recruit Wexford as an adviser on a mysterious murder case.
The bodies of two women and a man have been discovered in the old coal hole of an attractive house in St John's Wood. None of the corpses carry identification. But the man's jacket pockets contain a string of pearls, a diamond and a sapphire necklace as well as other jewellery valued in the region of £40,000.
To Wexford, this is definitely a case worth coming out of retirement for. He is intrigued and excited by the challenge, but unaware that this new investigative role will bring him into extreme physical danger...
Featured in The Times Top 10 Crime Books of the Decade
The twenty-fourth book in the bestselling Detective Chief Inspector Wexford series, from the author of classic detective fiction and gripping psychological thrillers including End in Tears and Thirteen Steps Down.
The impossible has happened. Chief Inspector Reg Wexford has retired from the crime force. He and his wife, Dora, now divide their time between Kingsmarkham and a coachhouse in Hampstead, belonging to their actress daughter, Sheila.
Wexford takes great pleasure in his books, but, for all the benefits of a more relaxed lifestyle, he misses being the hand of the law.
But a chance meeting in a London street, with someone he had known briefly as a very young police constable, changes everything. Tom Ede is now a Detective Superintendent, and is very keen to recruit Wexford as an adviser on a mysterious murder case.
The bodies of two women and a man have been discovered in the old coal hole of an attractive house in St John's Wood. None of the corpses carry identification. But the man's jacket pockets contain a string of pearls, a diamond and a sapphire necklace as well as other jewellery valued in the region of £40,000.
To Wexford, this is definitely a case worth coming out of retirement for. He is intrigued and excited by the challenge, but unaware that this new investigative role will bring him into extreme physical danger...
#23 - Means Of Evil And Other Stories
What connects a kidnapped baby, a woman's body left to rot in a cove in Yugoslavia, a suspicious suicide and the century-old case of a wife who poisons her husband? The answer: British crime fiction's favourite detective, DCI Reg Wexford.
In the first of five cases, Wexford is brought in to deal with a distraught mother whose baby girl has been swapped with an unknown baby boy. When a local priest discovers the missing baby, safe and sound, on the church steps, the hunt for the missing girl is quickly over.
Mother and daughter are happily reunited, but the mystery of the baby boy remains unsolved. Then Wexford discovers Paddy Jasper has returned to Kingsmarkham, a man previously investigated by Wexford for violently abusing a child. Now Wexford fears the next reunion may not be as happy as the last...
In the first of five cases, Wexford is brought in to deal with a distraught mother whose baby girl has been swapped with an unknown baby boy. When a local priest discovers the missing baby, safe and sound, on the church steps, the hunt for the missing girl is quickly over.
Mother and daughter are happily reunited, but the mystery of the baby boy remains unsolved. Then Wexford discovers Paddy Jasper has returned to Kingsmarkham, a man previously investigated by Wexford for violently abusing a child. Now Wexford fears the next reunion may not be as happy as the last...
#24 - No Man's Nightingale
No Man's Nightingale: the eagerly anticipated twenty-fourth title in Ruth Rendell's bestselling Detective Chief Inspector Wexford series.
The woman vicar of St Peter's Church may not be popular among the community of Kingsmarkham. But it still comes as a profound shock when she is found strangled in her vicarage.
Inspector Wexford is retired, but he retains a relish for solving mysteries especially when they are as close to home as this one is.
So when he's asked whether he will assist on the case, he readily agrees.
But why did the vicar die? And is anyone else in Kingsmarkham in danger?
What Wexford doesn't know is that the killer is far closer than he, or anyone else, thinks.
The woman vicar of St Peter's Church may not be popular among the community of Kingsmarkham. But it still comes as a profound shock when she is found strangled in her vicarage.
Inspector Wexford is retired, but he retains a relish for solving mysteries especially when they are as close to home as this one is.
So when he's asked whether he will assist on the case, he readily agrees.
But why did the vicar die? And is anyone else in Kingsmarkham in danger?
What Wexford doesn't know is that the killer is far closer than he, or anyone else, thinks.
#25 - The Speaker Of Mandarin
Readers of PD James, Ann Cleeves and Donna Leon will love this gripping crime thriller full of twists and turns from multi-million copy and SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author Ruth Rendell.
'The most brilliant mystery writer' -- Patricia Cornwell
'Probably the greatest crime writer in the world' -- Ian Rankin
'Totally gripping with superb twist at the end!' -- ***** Reader review
'Fascinating' -- ***** Reader review
'Superb on all counts' -- ***** Reader review
'Keeps the reader rooted to the spot and in the dark till the very end' -- ***** Reader review
*****
Wherever Reggie Wexford goes, death and intrigue are close on his heels. Having just returned from a once-in-a-lifetime holiday in China, Wexford finds himself haunted by memories of the old woman with bound feet who mysteriously followed him from one city to the next and the man who tragically drowned.
Now, back in England, he finds himself investigating the murder of a fellow tourist. Knowing that the clue to these three mysteries lies in the East, Wexford turns his investigative skills to that place of unfathomable and sinister depths...
'The most brilliant mystery writer' -- Patricia Cornwell
'Probably the greatest crime writer in the world' -- Ian Rankin
'Totally gripping with superb twist at the end!' -- ***** Reader review
'Fascinating' -- ***** Reader review
'Superb on all counts' -- ***** Reader review
'Keeps the reader rooted to the spot and in the dark till the very end' -- ***** Reader review
*****
Wherever Reggie Wexford goes, death and intrigue are close on his heels. Having just returned from a once-in-a-lifetime holiday in China, Wexford finds himself haunted by memories of the old woman with bound feet who mysteriously followed him from one city to the next and the man who tragically drowned.
Now, back in England, he finds himself investigating the murder of a fellow tourist. Knowing that the clue to these three mysteries lies in the East, Wexford turns his investigative skills to that place of unfathomable and sinister depths...