Abie Longstaff is the eldest of six children and grew up in Australia, Hong Kong and France. She knows all about squabbling, chaos and bossing younger sisters around. So she logically began her career as a barrister. She started writing when her children were born. Her favourite childhood books were Hating Alison Ashley, A Little Princess, Maura's Angel and The Black Stallion and she sneakily reads them again sometimes. Abie lives in Hove with her family.

Abie Longstaff

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Ruth Rendell

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.

Fatalities and feminism combine in this captivating mystery from multi-million copy and SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author Ruth Rendell. Perfect for readers of PD James, Ann Cleeves and Donna Leon. 
 
'A brilliant reshuffling of a pack of clues . . . Rendell at her richest' -- Sunday Times 
'Well-plotted . . . baffling . . . Still the tops' -- Sunday Telegraph 
'A climax as chilling and unexpected as any she's perpetrated before' -- The Times 
'Another great novel from this author; she never disappoints' -- ***** Reader review 
'Another Rendell worth staying up late reading...' -- ***** Reader review 
'Rendell rules!' -- ***** Reader review 
'Very hard to put down once you start' -- ***** Reader review 
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The raven: not a particularly predatory bird, but far from soft and submissive, adopted as the symbol of a militant feminist group... 
 
Detective Chief Inspector Wexford thought he was merely doing a neighbourly good deed when he agreed to talk to Joy Williams about her missing husband. He certainly didn't expect to be investigating a most unusual homicide. 
 
Rodney Williams was neither handsome nor wealthy - but he had an unerring eye for a pretty girl and when he disappeared and two other men were later attacked by a young woman, Wexford couldn't help wondering if there was a connection. If there wasn't, where was Rodney Williams and why had he vanished? He had committed no crime - apart from telling his wife the occasional lie...

An Unkindness Of Ravens

an absorbing Wexford mystery from the award-winning Queen of Crime, Ruth Rendell

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...

End In Tears

(A Wexford Case)

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 
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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 Speaker Of Mandarin

a brilliantly chilling and captivating Inspector Wexford novel from the award-winning queen of crime, Ruth Rendell

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...

Harm Done

a hugely absorbing and compelling Wexford mystery from the award-winning queen of crime, Ruth Rendell

Death is always solitary. For some, so is life . . . Fans of PD James, Ann Cleeves and Donna Leon will devour this enthralling mystery of deception, doubt and death from multi-million copy and SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author Ruth Rendell ... 
 
'Probably the greatest crime writer in the world' -- Ian Rankin 
'[Wexford] has become an old friend who gets better with age' -- Herald 
'A cracking good tale' -- ***** Reader review 
'Rendell at her complex best' -- ***** Reader review 
'Unputdownable' -- ***** Reader review 
'A treat from start to finish' -- ***** Reader review 
'Couldn't put it down' -- ***** Reader review 
 
****************************************************************************************************** 
 
On a sultry August evening, the bloody body of a middle-aged woman is discovered beneath a hedge by a small boy. 
 
There are only two things that surprise Wexford about the murder scene. One, that the only contents of the woman's handbag are some keys and a wallet containing nothing but some money. And two, how even in death, her deathly grey eyes possess a scornful glare. 
 
The woman turns out to be Rhoda Comfrey, but there's no murder weapon, no apparent motive, and no one who actually cares that she died. 
 
Wexford's only hunch is that the clues to her murder must lie in her solitary London life. But her existence there becomes frustratingly impossible to trace.

A Sleeping Life

a spine-tingling, edge-of-your-seat Wexford mystery from the award-winning Queen of Crime, Ruth Rendell

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