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A collection of nine beautifully crafted, terrifying and intriguing tales of spine-tingling psychological terror and suspense from Ruth Rendell. The title story, is about a man whose life, in a sense, is a book. Life for Ambrose Ribbon is lonely, paranoid and obsessive without his mother, yet there is one book that he associates particularly with her: Volume VIII of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Piranha to Scurfy'. It marked a very significant moment in their relationship.

Love and death are the principal players in these two BBC Radio full-cast dramatisations of chilling Ruth Rendell stories. In "The Bridesmaid", when Philip embarks on an affair with Senta, his sister's bridesmaid, she reminds him of the stone statue he adored as a child. Yet Senta is married, and Philip's overwhelming aversion to violence leads indirectly to murder and horror as he is drawn into erotic but murderous complicity.

With deceptive economy in these nine short stories, Ruth Rendell indicates hidden depths in ordinary events and creates a sense of profound unease. The stories are: 'A Pair of Yellow Lilies', 'Paperwork', 'Mother’s Hel'p, 'Long Live the Queen', 'Dying Happy', 'The Copper Peacock', 'Weeds', 'The Fish-Sitter', and 'An Unwanted Woman'.

When the truffle-hunting dog starts to dig furiously, his master’s first reaction is delight at the size of the clump the dog has unearthed: At the going rate, this one truffle might be worth several hundred pounds. Then the dirt falls away to reveal not a precious mushroom but the bones and tendons of what is clearly a human hand. In Not in the Flesh, Chief Inspector Wexford tries to piece together events that took place 11 years earlier, a time when someone was secretly interred in a secluded patch of English countryside.

Revenge is one of the great themes in literature, from Shakespeare to Poe. This collection contains 18 original stories commissioned for this volume plus a reprint of a classic Ruth Rendell mystery.

More of the Greatest Mysteries of All Time is the second in a series featuring the finest short story mystery fiction by the most acclaimed writers, past and present. From Thomas Hardy, O. Henry, Jack London, Vincent Starrett and everyone in between, this unique collection, edited by multi-award winning mystery connoisseur Otto Penzler, is a delightful mixture of mystery and suspense.

Eve and Liza, Mother and Daughter, live a quiet life in their remote home; a rustic gatehouse of a country mansion. At first glance their lives appear quite ordinary, except that Liza has almost no knowledge of the outside world, has never played with a child her own age and has witnessed her mother commit murder, on multiple occasions.

The impossible has happened. Chief Inspector Reg Wexford has retired. He and his wife now divide their time between Kingsmarkham and a coachhouse in Hampstead belonging to their actress daughter, Sheila. For all the benefits of a more relaxed way of life, Wexford misses being 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 difficult case.

Chief Inspector Reg Wexford has retired. He and his wife, Dora, now divide their time between Kingsmarkham and their daughter, Sheila’s, coach house in Hampstead. Wexford takes great pleasure in his books, but, for all the benefits of a more relaxed lifestyle, he misses being the law. But a chance meeting with an old acquaintance in a London street changes everything. Tom Ede is now a Detective Superintendent, and is very keen to recruit Wexford as an adviser on a difficult case.

When Stuart Font decides to throw a house-warming party in his new flat he invites everyone in his building. The party will be one everyone remembers. But not for the right reasons....

Sarah Hussain was not popular in the community of Kingsmarkham. She was born of mixed parents - a white Irishwoman and an immigrant Indian Hindu. She was also the Reverend of St Peter's church. But it came as a profound shock to everyone when she was found strangled in the vicarage. A garrulous cleaner, Maxine, also shared by the Wexfords, discovers the body. In his retirement, the former Detective Chief Inspector is devoting much time to reading, and has little patience with Maxine's prattle.

In traditional fairytales the handsome prince rescues the beautiful princess from her wicked stepmother, and the couple live happily ever after. But in Ruth Rendell's dark and damaged contemporary universe, innocent dreams can turn into the most terrible nightmares.

Wexford had almost made up his mind that he would never again set eyes on Eric Targo. 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, no one was convicted.

In Rendell's evocative portrayal of West London, the slums of Notting Hill Gate and the mews houses of Holland Park may, geographically, only be streets apart but, socially, they are worlds apart. When these two worlds collide, the repercussions are fatal. Guy, from a council flat in Notting Hill Gate and Lenora, a wealthy middle-class young girl were childhood sweethearts, and despite Lenora’s mother’s disapproval, belonged to the same criminal gang.

From three-time Edgar Award-winning mystery writer Ruth Rendell comes a captivating tale of residents and servants on one block of a posh London street - and the deadly ways their lives intertwine. Life in the well-manicured London locale of Hexam Place is not as placid and orderly as it appears. Behind the tranquil gardens and polished entryways, relationships between servants and their employers are set to combust. Henry, the handsome valet to Lord Studley, is sleeping with both the Lord's wife and his university-age daughter.

Only eighteen black people live in Kingsmarkham. One of them is Wexford's new Doctor, Raymond Akande. When the doctor's daughter, Melanie, goes missing, the Chief Inspector takes more than just a professional interest in the case. Melanie, just down from university but unable to find a job, disappeared somewhere between the Benefit Office and the bus stop. No one liked to voice the suspicion that something might have happened, that Melanie might be dead...

The best-selling author of Harm Done and A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell has written dozens of gripping works under her own name and as Barbara Vine. She has received three Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America and four Dagger Awards from England’s Crime Writers Association. How frightening can a book be? Ambrose Ribbon, self-appointed editor and grammar police, is about to find out.

Two young girls disappear then return home unharmed some days later. Chief Inspector Wexford is concerned about a pedophile who has been recently released back into the community but cannot foresee a series of serious crimes waiting to happen.

A bypass is planned in Kingsmarkham, but before the protestors make their presence felt, the badly decomposed body of a young woman is discovered. Burden thinks he knows the identity of the murderer, but Wexford is not convinced.

On the day Lizzie came back from the dead, the police and her family and neighbors had already begun to search for her body. She had been missing for three days. Never an articulate child, between her confusion and amnesia she could not plausibly describe where she'd been or why she'd been away. Soon after, a convicted pedophile is released back into the community, adding to the already heightened fears of parents in the Muriel Campden Estate where he lives. Then the child of a wealthy executive disappears, and not long after, a suspect in the kidnapping is found stabbed to death.