There are only two things that interest Stanley: the crosswords and getting his hands on his mother's money, which he has dreamed about for 20 years. He finally realises that he must construct a puzzle of his own in order to give death a helping hand.

Four members of the Coverdale family died in the space of 15 minutes on St Valentine's Day. Eunice Parchman, the housekeeper, shot them down on that Sunday evening while they were watching opera on television, and was arrested two weeks later. But the tragedy neither began nor ended there.

A bank job goes wrong and a Kingsmarkham detective sergeant is killed. Months later, the Flory family are slaughtered at home by an unknown assassin. The cases seem unrelated. But Chief Inspector Wexford is not so sure. By the author of The Copper Peacock and The Bridesmaid.

It's impossible to forget the violent bludgeoning to death of an elderly lady in her home. Even more so when it's your first murder case.
Wexford believed he'd solved Mrs. Primero's murder fifteen years ago. It was no real mystery. Everyone knew Painter, her odd-job man, had done it. There had never been any doubt in anyone's mind. Until now.
Henry Archery's son is engaged to Painter's daughter. Only Archery can't let the past remain buried. He wants to prove Wexford wrong and in probing into the lives of the witnesses questioned all those years ago, he stirs up more than old ghosts.

Ruth Rendell has won many awards, including the Crime Writers' Gold Dagger Award. In this novel Anita Margolis has vanished. There was no body, no crime, nothing more concrete than an anonymous letter.

Jack was getting married and his best friend, Charlie was to be his best man. Jack felt as though his life was just beginning, but for Charlie, life was about to end.

With no clues as to the murdered woman's identity, all Wexford has to go on is his imagination.
The body found under the hedge was that of a middle-aged woman, biggish and gaunt. The grey eyes were wide and staring, and in them, Detective Chief Inspector Wexford thought he saw a sardonic gleam, a glare, even in death, of scorn. But that must have been his imagination, and his imagination was almost all he had to go on.
The woman was a stranger. Her handbag held little more than three keys on a ring and forty-two pounds in a new wallet. There was nothing to give him her address, her...

Sir Manuel Camargue's death was ruled Misadventure, yet in spite of himself, Chief Inspector Wexford has niggling doubts.
Sir Manuel Camargue, one of the greatest flautists of his time, was dead. An old man, ankle-deep in snow, he lost his foothold in the dark, slipping into water to be trapped under a lid of ice. Only a glove remained to point where he lay, one of its fingers pointing up out of the drifts.
There's nothing Chief Inspector Wexford likes better than an open-and-shut case. They're so restful. And yet there are one or two niggling doubts and the disturbing return of...

In the peaceful garden of a London house, a manhole cover has just been raised. Inside the cellar lie three bodies. Two men and a woman. None carry identification. The men have been there for twelve years; the woman for only two. For Inspector Wexford, this is a case worth coming out of retirement for.

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?...