The Child's Child

The Child's Child is the new crime novel by bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine, pen-name for the late bestselling author Ruth Rendell 
 
What sort of betrayal would drive a brother and sister apart? 
 
When Grace and her brother Andrew inherit their grandmother's house in Hampstead, they decide to move in together. It seems the obvious thing to do: they've always got on well, the house is large enough to split down the middle, and neither of them likes partying or loud music. There's one thing they've forgotten though: what if one of them wants to bring a lover into the house? When Andrew's partner James moves in, it alters the balance - with almost fatal consequences. 
 
Barbara Vine's is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell, and The Child's Child is the first book she has published under that name since The Birthday Present in 2008. It's an intriguing examination of betrayal in families, and of those two once-unmentionable subjects, illegitimacy and homosexuality. 
 
A taut, thrilling read, it will be enjoyed by readers of P.D. James and Ian Rankin. 
 
'Cracking stuff. The Vine continues to flourish . . . (A) miracle of storytelling with her customary aplomb and cool composure' Express on The Child's Child 
 
'The Rendell/Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin 
 
 
Ruth rendall has published fourteen novels under the Vine name, two of which, Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet, won the prestigious Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Also available in Penguin by Barbara Vine: The Minotaur, The Blood Doctor, Grasshopper, The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, The Brimstone Wedding, No Night is Too Long, Asta's Book, King Solomon's Carpet, Gallowglass, The House of Stairs, A Dark-Adapted Eye.

Probably the greatest living crime writer in the world

Cracking stuff. The Vine continues to flourish . . . (A) miracle of storytelling with her customary aplomb and cool composure

Vine is not afraid to walk down the mean streets of the mind and can build up an almost tangible atmosphere of menace and unease

Barbara Vine was the pen-name of Ruth Rendell, and Viking published all of her books under that name. 
 
Rendell was an exceptional crime writer, with worldwide sales of approximately 20 million copies, and regular Sunday Times bestsellers. 
 
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.

When Grace and her brother Andrew inherit their grandmother's house in Hampstead, they decide to move in together. It seems the obvious thing to do: they've always got on well, the house is large enough to split down the middle, and neither of them likes partying or loud music. There's one thing they've forgotten though: what if one of them wants to bring a lover into the house? When Andrew's partner James moves in, it alters the balance - with almost fatal consequences. 
 
The Child's Child is an intriguing examination of betrayal in a family, and of those two once-unmentionable subjects, illegitimacy and homosexuality.

No Night is Too Long

No Night is Too Long is a classic crime novel by bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine 
 
Tim Cornish thought he'd gotten away with murder. For months after he'd killed his lover off the Alaskan coast, there hadn't been a word. But then the letters started to arrive. It seems that someone knows what Tim has done . . . 
 
This compelling thriller delivers such a dark picture of romantic love that murder seems its natural mate. Frightening, suspenseful, and deeply unsettling, No Night is Too Long is a modern crime masterpiece and will be enjoyed by readers of P.D. James and Ian Rankin. 
 
'The Rendell/Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin 
 
'She deploys her peerless skills in blending the mundane, commonplace aspects of life with the murky impulses of desire and greed' Sunday Times 
 
Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. Ruth has published fourteen novels under the Vine name, two of which, Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet, won the prestigious Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Also available in Penguin by Barbara Vine: The Minotaur, The Blood Doctor, Grasshopper, The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, The Brimstone Wedding, No Night is Too Long, Asta's Book, King Solomon's Carpet, Gallowglass, The House of Stairs, A Dark-Adapted Eye.

Tim Cornish thought he'd gotten away with murder. For months after he'd killed his lover off the Alaskan coast, there hadn't been a word. But then the letters started to arrive. It seems that someone knows what Tim has done . . . 
 
This compelling thriller delivers such a dark picture of romantic love that murder seems its natural mate. Frightening, suspenseful, and deeply unsettling, No Night is Too Long is a modern crime masterpiece and will be enjoyed by readers of P.D. James and Ian Rankin. 
 
'The Rendell/Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin 
 
'She deploys her peerless skills in blending the mundane, commonplace aspects of life with the murky impulses of desire and greed' Sunday Times

The Chimney Sweeper's Boy

The Chimney Sweeper's Boy - a classic crime novel by bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine 
 
'Gripping, almost impossible to put down' Guardian 
 
'One of the most frightening novels I have ever read ... Gerald Candless, the monster at the heart of the maze, is a marvellous creation' Amanda Craig, Express on Sunday 
 
When successful author Gerald Candless dies of a sudden heart attack, his eldest, adoring daughter Sarah embarks on a memoir of him and soon discovers that her perfect father was not all he appeared to be. That in fact he wasn't Gerald Candless at all. But then, who was he? And what terrible secret had driven him to live a lie for all those years? 
 
'So ingeniously constructed, its truth and falsehoods are so deftly and convincingly interwoven, that its solution ... is as jolting as a flash of lightning' Sunday Times 
 
'About the power of taboos, transgressions, guilts, deceptions, horrors, atonements, upsets and upheavals ... gripping' Independent 
 
If you enjoy the crime novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love The Chimney Sweeper's Boy. 
 
 Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.

When successful author Gerald Candless dies of a sudden heart attack, his eldest, adoring daughter Sarah embarks on a memoir of him and soon discovers that her perfect father was not all he appeared to be. That, in fact, he wasn't Gerald Candless at all. But then, who was he? And what terrible secret had driven him to live a lie for all those years?

King Solomon's Carpet

King Solomon's Carpet is a prize-winning crime classic from bestselling author Barbara Vine 
 
Winner of the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award 
 
'The tension grows ... an overwhelming sense of foreboding ... when the unravelling takes place, it is brilliantly unexpected and original' The Times 
 
Jarvis Stringer lives in a crumbling schoolhouse overlooking a tube line, compiling his obsessive, secret history of London's Underground. His presence and his strange house draw a band of misfits into his orbit: young Alice, who has run away from her husband and baby; Tom, the busker who rescues her; truant Jasper who gets his kicks on the tube; and mysterious Axel, whose dark secret later casts a shadow over all of their lives. 
 
Dispossessed and outcast, those who come to inhabit Jarvis's schoolhouse are gradually brought closer together in violent and unforeseen ways by London's forbidding and dangerous Undergound . . . 
 
'I longed to know what would happen next. Towards the end the tension fairly gets you by the throat' Sunday Express 
 
'Vine arouses a genuine fear that all that is normal is in danger of being lost' Sunday Times 
 
King Solomon's Carpet is a modern masterpiece of the crime genre and will leave you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love this book. 
 
Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.

Jarvis Stringer lives in a crumbling schoolhouse overlooking a tube line, compiling his obsessive, secret history of London's Underground. His presence and his strange house draw a band of misfits into his orbit: young Alice, who has run away from her husband and baby; Tom, the busker who rescues her; truant Jasper who gets his kicks on the tube; and mysterious Axel, whose dark secret later casts a shadow over all of their lives. 
 
Dispossessed and outcast, those who come to inhabit Jarvis's schoolhouse are gradually brought closer together in violent and unforeseen ways by London's forbidding and dangerous Underground...

Asta's Book

Asta's Book is a classic double-detective story by crime master Barbara Vine 
 
For a good, absorbing, well-told story, you could hardly better the unveiling of Asta's secret' Sunday Times 
 
It is 1905. Asta and her husband Rasmus have come to East London from Denmark with their two little boys. With Rasmus constantly away on business, Asta keeps loneliness and isolation at bay by writing a diary. These diaries, published over seventy years later, reveal themselves to be more than a mere journal. For they seem to hold the key to an unsolved murder and to the mystery of a missing child. It falls to Asta's granddaughter Ann to unearth the buried secrets of nearly a century before. 
 
'A dazzling domestic thriller' Guardian 
 
'Obsessively readable' Sunday Telegraph 
 
'Engrossing . . . a mixture of biography, true crime and romance people with vivid minor players and red with herrings' Independent on Sunday 
 
'Absolutely enthralling ... the best yet from the Vine/Rendell bureau. Essential reading' Literary Review 
 
'Simply put, Vine is one of the greatest writers ever' Scott Turow 
 
Asta's Bookis a modern crime masterpiece and will be enjoyed by readers of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow. 
 
Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.

Simply put, Vine is one of the greatest writers ever

It is 1905. Asta and her husband Rasmus have come to East London from Denmark with their two little boys. With Rasmus constantly away on business, Asta keep loneliness and isolation at bay by writing a diary. These diaries, published over seventy years later, reveal themselves to be more than a mere journal. For they seem to hold they key to an unsolved murder and to the mystery of a missing child. It falls to Asta's granddaughter Ann to unearth the buried secrets of nearly a century before.

A Fatal Inversion

A classic of the crime genre, A Fatal Inversion plunges you into the darker side of humanity with a plot that will keep you guessing throughout! 
 
'An absolute winner . . . a gripping read from start to end' Daily Mail 
 
'Brilliant. Vine has the kind of near-Victorian narrative drive' Sunday Times 
 
'I defy anyone to guess the conclusion' Daily Telegraph 
 
***** 
In the long hot summer of 1976, a group of young adults camp in Wyvis Hall, a beautiful Suffolk country house, after one of them unexpectedly inherits it. Revelling in their self-indulgent, irresponsible paradise, they scavenge, steal and sell heirlooms - to entertain and simply exist. 
 
Ten years later, when the current owner buries their beloved dog in the Hall's animal cemetery, the bodies of a woman and child are discovered. But which woman? And whose child? As the facts slowly emerge, their past begins to catch up with them . . . 
 
Written under Ruth Rendell's pen name, Barbara Vine, if you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Ann Cleeves, you will love this book. 
 
***** 
 
'One of the best Barbara Vine novels' Goodreads Review 
 
'Not an ordinary mystery . . . it is compelling and certainly thought-provoking' Goodreads Review 
 
'Vine is expert at the slow disclosure of facts and feelings' Goodreads Review

In the long hot summer of 1976, a group of young people are camping in Wyvis Hall. Adam, Rufus, Shiva, Vivien and Zosie hardly ask why they are there, what they are doing or how they are to live; they scavenge, steal and sell the family heirlooms.In short, they exist. Ten years later, the bodies of a woman and a child are discovered in the Hall's animal cemetery. Which woman? Whose child?

The Minotaur

The Minotaur - a thrilling novel from the bestselling queen of crime Barbara Vine 
 
Kerstin Kvist enters crumbling Lydstep Old Hall to live with the Cosways and to act as nurse to John: a grown man fed drugs by his family to control his lunatic episodes. But John's strangeness is grotesquely mirrored in that of his four sisters who roam the dark, mazy Essex country house under the strict gaze of eighty-year-old Mrs Cosway. 
 
Despite being treated as an outsider, Kerstin is nevertheless determined to help John. But she soon discovers that there are others in the family who are equally as determined that John remain isolated, for sinister reasons of their own ... 
 
'The reader is kept in suspense throughout . . . vintage wine from the Rendell vine' Independent 
 
'The Cosway family is a mesmerizing creation... I rushed through the last pages' Penelope Lively, Sunday Times 
 
'Stealthy, credible, ingenious and addictive' Literary Review 
 
'The Rendell/ Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin 
 
The Minotaur is a modern masterpiece of the crime genre and will leave you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love this book. 
 
Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.

Kerstin Kvist enters crumbling Lydstep Old Hall to live with the Cosways and to act as nurse to John: a grown man fed drugs by his family to control his lunatic episodes. But John's strangeness is grotesquely mirrored in that of his four sisters who roam the dark, mazy Essex country house under the strict gaze of eighty-year-old Mrs Cosway. 
 
Despite being treated as an outsider, Kerstin is nevertheless determined to help John. But she soon discovers that there are others in the family who are equally as determined that John remain isolated, for sinister reasons of their own ...

A Dark-Adapted Eye

A Dark-Adapted Eye is a modern classic. If you enjoy the crime novels of P.D. James and Ian Rankin you will love this book. 
 
'A rich, complex and beautifully crafted novel' P.D. James 
 
The prize-winning classic that 'changed the thriller landscape', with a new foreword from Val McDermid. 
 
VERA HILLYARD. AUNT. MOTHER. MURDERESS. 
 
Faith Severn's life has long been overshadowed by the mystery surrounding her aunt. A respectable woman who committed a crime so terrible she was hung for it. 
 
Now, the time has come to piece her story together. 
 
What secret caused two devoted sisters to turn from love to hate? 
And was Vera born a killer. . . Or was she driven to it? 
 
'Brilliantly plotted. Vine is not afraid to walk down the mean streets of the mind and can build up an almost tangible atmosphere of menace and unease' Daily Telegraph 
 
'Will linger in your memory long after you have closed the book. A first-rate novel' Washington Post

Like most families, they had their secrets... 
 
And they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. No onlooker would guess that prim Vera Hillyard and her beautiful, adored younger sister, Eden, were locked in a dark and bitter combat over one of those secrets. England in the fifties was not kind to women who erred, so they had to use every means necessary to keep the truth hidden behind closed doors - even murder.

The Birthday Present

The Birthday Present by Barbara Vine - a gripping, psychological thriller packed with menace 
 
Intensely imagined, fearful and satisfying' Sunday Times 
 
Tory MP Ivor Tesham has unconventional tastes. And in bored housewife Hebe Furnal he finds someone to share and enact his sexual fantasies. However, one day it all goes terribly wrong. Ivor plans a special liaison for Hebe's birthday - a daring sexual adventure. But dangerous games have unforeseen costs and consequences. And when there is an accidental death, scandal and ruin cannot be far behind . . . 
 
How long can a secret stay a secret? 
How long will friends protect a reputation? 
And how long before guilt catches up with you? 
 
'The pre-eminent genius of the psychological thriller' Herald 
 
'Gripping, compelling' Mail on Sunday 
 
'Vintage Vine' Literary Review 
 
If you like P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love The Bithday Present by Barbara Vine. 
 
Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.

The Rendell/Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together

Again a great read from a master of the story-telling process

Packed with menace and the threat of exposure. One of Rendell's most complex plots.

Her Barbara Vine novels allow [Ruth Rendell] to retain her title as Britain's pre-eminent psychological thriller. A suspenseful and chilling tale

Characters are intensely imagined and far from the usual uncomplicated stereotypes of victims and perpetrators. An experience that is both fearful and satisfying

Riveting and only too plausible account of the downfall of a politician. Brilliant narrative voice. An unsurpassed portrait of a character suffering from low self-esteem, mild paranoia and gradual mental deterioration.

Oddly exhilarating and liberating. Truly, Baroness Rendell of Babergh is an original talent.

It's late spring of 1990 and a love affair is flourishing: between Ivor Tesham, a thirty-three year old rising star of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government, and Hebe Furnal, a stunning North London housewife stuck in a dull marriage. What excitement Hebe lacks at home, however, is amply compensated for by the well-bred and intensely attractive Tesham - an ardent womanizer and ambitious politican. 
 
On the eve of her twenty-eighth birthday, Tesham decides to give Hebe a present to remember: something far more memorable than, say, the costly string of pearls he's already lavished upon her. Involving a fashionable new practice known as 'adventure sex', a man arranges for his unsuspecting but otherwise willing girlfriend to be snatched from the street, bound and gagged, and delivered to him at a mutually agreed venue ... 
 
Set amidst an age of IRA bombings, the first Gulf War, and sleazy politics, The Birthday Present is the gripping story of a fall from grace, and of a man who carries within him all the hypocrisy, greed and self-obsession of a troubled era.

The Brimstone Wedding

Barbara Vine has sold over a million copies in Penguin Paperback

The Brimstone Wedding - a masterful mystery about love and madness by bestseller Barbara Vine 
 
'Intriguing, absorbing and compelling' Spectator 
 
Jenny's marriage is loveless, and she is having an affair. She works at an old people's home, where she is especially fond of Stella, a gracious, dignified woman dying of cancer - whose own secrets parallel Jenny's - with the difference that she may have been involved in murdering her lover's husband . . . 
 
Both a finely crafted mystery and a disturbingly honest depiction of the kinship between love and madness, The Brimstone Wedding tells an unsettling story about the power and the poison of love. If you enjoy the crime novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will adore this book. 
 
 
'The Rendell/ Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin 
'A superb and original writer' Amanda Craig, Express 
 
Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.

Jenny's marriage is loveless, and she is having an affair. She works at an old people's home, where she is especially fond of Stella, a woman dying of cancer - whose own secrets parallel Jenny's - with the difference that she may have been involved in murdering her lover's husband.

The Blood Doctor

'An outstandingly original book' Sunday Times

The Blood Doctor by Barbara Vine - a crime masterpiece about ambition, obsession and bad blood 
 
'An outstandingly original book' Sunday Times 
 
The current Lord Nanther, experiencing the reform of the House of Lords, embarks on a biography of his great-grandfather, the first Lord Nanther, favoured physician to Queen Victoria, expert on blood diseases and particularly the royal disease of haemophilia. What he uncovers begins to horrify him as he realizes that Nanther died a guilty man - carrying a horrific secret to the grave. 
 
Weaving effortlessly between past and present, public life and private life, The Blood Doctoris a superbly satisfying novel that will be adored by readers of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow. 
 
'A magnificent novel' Daily Mail 
 
'Intriguing and absorbing and wholly satisfying' Spectator 
'Plotted with a jeweller's intricacy and ominous to the final sentence' Sunday Telegraph 
 
Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.

Barbara Vine's new novel is about blood - blood in its metaphysical sense as the conductor of an inherited title and blood in its physical sense as the transmitter of disease. 
The current Lord Nanther, experiencing the reform of the House of Lords, embarks on a biography of his great-grandfather, the first Lord Nanther, favoured physician to Queen Victoria, expert on blood diseases and particularly the royal disease of haemophilia. What he uncovers begins to horrify him as he realizes that Nanther died a guilty man - carrying a horrific secret to the grave. 
The Blood Doctor weaves effortlessly between past and present, public life and private life. The result is a superbly satisfying novel about ambition, obsession and bad blood.

Grasshopper

Grasshopper is an enthralling, chilling novel by the bestselling queen of crime Barbara Vine 
 
'They have sent me here because of what happened on the pylon' 
 
When Clodagh Brown writes these words at the age of nineteen, she believes that she is leaving behind the traumatic events of her youth. But Clodagh soon learns that you can never entirely escape your past. 
 
In the aftermath of the incident on the pylon - a gargantuan electrified grasshopper - Clodagh goes off to university, moves into a basement flat arranged by her unsympathetic family, and finds freedom trekking across London's rooftops with a gang of neighborhood misfits. As she begins a thrilling relationship with a fellow climber, however, both Clodagh and the reader are haunted by the memory of the pylon and of the terrible thing that happened there - and by the eerie sense that another tragedy is just a footfall away. 
 
Grasshopper is a modern crime masterpiece that will have you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love this book. 
 
'The Rendell/ Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin 
 
'A superb and original writer' Amanda Craig, Express 
 
Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.

Blamed by her parents for the tragic death of a friend, Clodagh has been banished from their home in the countryside to a dingy basement flat in the city. Her life is transformed when she meets the inhabitants on the top floor of 15 Russia Road. An exotic range of young people who explore a London of roofs, eaves and ledges, thrilling in the freedom and danger. Clodagh, haunted still by the accident, finds that running the roofs brings her back to life, but it seems that tragedy and misfortune may not be done with her yet. Barbara Vine's 10th novel, GRASSHOPPER is an enthralling, chilling novel that mirrors Vine's acclaimed London Underground novel KING SOLOMON'S CARPET.

The House of Stairs

The House of Stairs - an unputdownable crime classic from bestselling author Barbara Vine 
 
Lizzie hasn't seen her old friend, Bell, for some fourteen years, but when she spots her from a taxi in a London street she jumps out and pursues her despite 'all the terrible things' that passed between them. As Lizzie reveals those events, little by little, the women rekindle their friendship, with terrifying results ... 
 
'This is the third psychological thriller by Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine and when I say it surpasses the first two that's really saying something ... Vine has not only produced a quietly smouldering suspense novel but also presents an accurately atmospheric portrayal of London in the heady 60's. Literally unputdownable' Time Out 
 
The House of Stairs is a modern masterpiece of the crime genre and will leave you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love this book. 
 
'The Rendell/ Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin 
'A superb and original writer' Amanda Craig, Express 
 
Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.

Lizzie hasn&rsquo;t seen her old friend, Bell, for some fourteen years, but when she spots her from a taxi in a London street she jumps out and pursues her despite &lsquo;all the terrible things&rsquo; that passed between them. As Lizzie reveals those events, little by little, the women rekindle their friendship, with terrifying results &hellip; 
 
 &lsquo;This is the third psychological thriller by Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine and when I say it surpasses the first two that&rsquo;s really saying something ... Vine has not only produced a quietly smouldering suspense novel but also presents an accurately atmospheric portrayal of London in the heady 60&rsquo;s. Literally unputdownable&rsquo; Time Out.

Gallowglass

Gallowglass is a thrilling crime classic from the bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine 
 
When Sandor snatched little Joe from the path of a London Tube train, he was quick to make clear the terms of the rescue. 'I saved your life,' he told the homeless youngster, 'so your life belongs to me now'. 
 
Sandor began to tell him a fairy-tale: an ageing prince, a kidnapped princess chained by one ankle, a missed rendezvous. But what did this mysterious story have to do with Sandor's preparations? Joe had only understood his own role: he was a gallowglass, the servant of a Chief... 
 
'On one level this is a novel about kidnapping. On another its concerns are obsession, the destructive nature of romantic illusions, and love. As Ms Vine unfolds it, nothing is quite what it seems' Guardian 
 
Gallowglass is a modern crime masterpiece that will have you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love this book. 
 
Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym, including A Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet which both won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: A Dark Adapted Eye; The House of Stairs; Gallowglass; Asta's Book; No Night Is Too Long; In the Time of His Prosperity; The Brimstone Wedding; The Chimney Sweeper's Boy; Grasshopper; The Blood Doctor; The Minotaur; The Birthday Present and The Child's Child.

When Sandor snatched little Joe from the path of a London Tube train, he was quick to make clear the terms of the rescue. &lsquo;I saved your life,&rsquo; he told the homeless youngster, &lsquo;so your life belongs to me now&rsquo;. 
 
Sandor began to tell him a fairy-tale: an ageing prince, a kidnapped princess chained by one ankle, a missed rendezvous. But what did this mysterious story have to do with Sandor&rsquo;s preparations? Joe had only understood his own role: he was a gallowglass, the servant of a Chief&hellip; 
 
&lsquo;On one level this is a novel about kidnapping. On another its concerns are obsession, the destructive nature of romantic illusions, and love. As Ms Vine unfolds it nothing is quite what it seems&rsquo; Guardian.

Barbara Vine

Compulsively readable ... a carefully devised plot unfolded with the most cunning art. Wilkie Collins and Dickens would have admired it

Brilliantly plotted. Vine is not afraid to walk down the mean streets of the mind and can build up an almost tangible atmosphere of menace and unease

Will linger in your memory long after you have closed the book. A first-rate novel

[Vine has a] dizzying ability to lock on to minds in chaos and snare us in their whorls of dread and doubt

'A rich, complex and beautifully crafted novel' P.D. James 
 
Vera Hillyard. My aunt, and murderess. 
 
Faith Severn's life has long been overshadowed by the scandal of her aunt's execution for murder. For nearly 25 years she has tried to forget the woman she once spent her holidays with, who seemed such a perfect mother and caring sister. 
 
Now the time has come to piece together the mystery. 
 
What secret caused two devoted sisters to turn from love to bitter hatred? 
Was Vera born a killer...or was she driven to it? 
And can anyone ever really know the truth? 
 
 
Written in 1986, and set against the morally and politically tumultous backdrop of 1940s England, Ruth Rendell's first novel writing as Barbara Vine is a psychological masterpiece, a study in the dangers of a society in thrall to ideas of female respectability. 
 
This newly packaged 30 year anniversary edition comes with a foreword by the acclaimed writer Val McDermid.

Barbara Vine

Praise for A Dark-adapted Eye

Compulsively readable ... a carefully devised plot unfolded with the most cunning art. Wilkie Collins and Dickens would have admired it

Brilliantly plotted. Vine is not afraid to walk down the mean streets of the mind and can build up an almost tangible atmosphere of menace and unease

Will linger in your memory long after you have closed the book. A first-rate novel

Compulsively readable ... a carefully devised plot unfolded with the most cunning art. Wilkie Collins and Dickens would have admired it

Brilliantly plotted. Vine is not afraid to walk down the mean streets of the mind and can build up an almost tangible atmosphere of menace and unease

Will linger in your memory long after you have closed the book. A first-rate novel

Compulsively readable ... a carefully devised plot unfolded with the most cunning art. Wilkie Collins and Dickens would have admired it

Brilliantly plotted. Vine is not afraid to walk down the mean streets of the mind and can build up an almost tangible atmosphere of menace and unease

Will linger in your memory long after you have closed the book. A first-rate novel

Books by Barbara Vine

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