Ruth Rendell

When Stuart Font decides to throw a house-warming party in his new flat, he invites all the people in his building. The party will be one everyone remembers. But not for the right reasons. All the occupants of Lichfield House are about to experience a dramatic change in their lives.

Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth something less savoury - a human hand. The body, as Chief Inspector Wexford is informed later, has lain buried for ten years or so, wrapped in a purple cotton shroud.

New and uncollected tales of murder, mischief, magic and madness. Ruth Rendell was an acknowledged master of psychological suspense: these are ten (and a quarter) of her most chillingly compelling short stories, collected here together for the first time. In these tales, a businessman boasts about cheating on his wife, only to find the tables turned. A beautiful country rectory reverberates to the echo of a historical murder. A compulsive liar acts...

When Carl sells a box of slimming pills to his close friend Stacey, inadvertently causing her death, he sets in train a sequence of catastrophic events which begin with subterfuge, extend to lies and culminate in murder. In Rendell's dark and atmospheric tale of psychological suspense, we encounter mistaken identity, kidnap, blackmail and a cast of

Jeff Leach sponges off women. Five women unknown to each other are his willing victims, but almost accidentally, he becomes the victim of one of his female prey.

Living in a decaying house in Notting Hill, loner Mix Cellini is obsessed with the John Christie murders and with a beautiful model who lives nearby. But when reality intrudes into Mix's life, a long pent-up violence explodes. Originally published: London: Hutchinson, 2004

The body found under the hedge was that of a middle-aged woman. The grey eyes were wide and staring, and in them D.I. Wexford thought he saw a sardonic gleam, but that must have been imagination. However, he didn't have much more to go on.