This page uses content from the Ruth Rendell biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.

Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, who also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, (born February 17, 1930), is an English best-selling mystery and psychological crime writer, often called the Queen of Crime.

Born in London, the daughter of teachers, Ruth (Barbara), née Grasemann, grew up and was educated at the County High School for Girls in Loughton Essex. She then worked as a journalist for Essex newspapers. She was fired after writing an article on the local Tennis Club's annual dinner, which she had actually not attended, thereby missing the untimely death of the after-dinner speaker mid-speech! She wrote two unpublished novels before From Doon With Death, the first mystery to feature her enduring and popular detective Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford, which was bought by publisher John Long for £75 and published in 1964. Wexford's latest case is End in Tears (2005).

Parallel to her Wexford procedurals are Rendell's psychological crime novels wherein she explores themes such as sexual obsession, the effects of misperceived communication, chance and the humanness of criminals, in books such as Judgment in Stone, The Face of Trespass,Live Flesh, Talking to Strange Men, The Killing Doll, Going Wrong, and Adam and Eve and Pinch Me.

Rendell created a third strand of writing with the publication of A Dark Adapted Eye under her pseudonym Barbara Vine in 1986 (the name derives from her own middle name and her grandmother's maiden name). Books such as King Solomon's Carpet, A Fatal Inversion and Asta's Book (alternative US title, Anna's Book) inhabit the same territory as her psychological crime novels while they further develop themes of family misunderstandings and the side effects of secrets kept and crimes done. Rendell is famous for her elegant prose and sharp insights into the human mind, as well as her ability to create cogent plots and characters. Rendell has also injected the social changes of the last 40 years into her work, bringing awareness to such issues as domestic violence and the change in the status of women.

Many credit her and her good friend P.D. James for upgrading the entire genre of 'whodunnit', shaping it more into a whydunnit. Several of her works have been adapted for film and television, including The Tree of Hands and the Pedro Almodovar film Live Flesh. The Inspector Wexford series has been successfully televised, starring acclaimed British actor George Baker as Inspector Wexford and Christopher Ravenscroft as Detective Mike Burden.

She has received many awards for her writing, including the Silver, Gold, and Cartier Diamond Daggers from the Crime Writers' Association, three Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America, The Arts Council National Book Awards, and the Sunday Times Literary Award. She was made CBE in 1996 and a life peer as Baroness Rendell of Babergh, of Aldeburgh in the County of Suffolk in 1997. She sits in the House of Lords for Labour.

Bibliography

Novels

• To Fear a Painted Devil (1965)
• Vanity Dies Hard (1965)
• The Secret House of Death (1968)
• One Across, Two Down (1971)
• The Face of Trespass (1974)
• A Demon in my View (1976)
• A Judgement In Stone (1977)
• Make Death Love Me (1979)
• The Lake of Darkness (1980)
• Master of the Moor (1982)
• The Killing Doll (1984)
• The Tree of Hands (1984)
• Live Flesh (1986)
• Talking to Strange Men (1987)
• The Bridesmaid (1989)
• Going Wrong (1990)
• The Crocodile Bird (1993)
• The Keys to the Street (1996)
• A Sight for Sore Eyes (1998)
• Adam and Eve and Pinch Me (2001)
• The Rottweiler (2003)
• Thirteen Steps Down (2004)
• The Water's Lovely (2006)

Inspector Wexford series

1. From Doon With Death (1964)
2. Wolf to the Slaughter (1967)
3. The Best Man to Die (1969)
4. A New Lease of Death (1969)
5. A Guilty Thing Surprised (1970)
6. No More Dying Then (1971)
7. Murder Being Once Done (1972)
8. Some Lie and Some Die (1973)
9. Shake Hands Forever (1975)
10. A Sleeping Life (1979)
11. Put on by Cunning (1981)
12. The Speaker of Mandarin (1983)
13. An Unkindness of Ravens (1985)
14. The Veiled One (1988)
15. Kissing the Gunner's Daughter (1992)
16. Simisola (1994)
17. Road Rage (1997)
18. Harm Done (1999)
19. The Babes in the Wood (2002)
20. End in Tears (2005)

Written as Barbara Vine

• A Dark-adapted Eye (1986)
• A Fatal Inversion (1987)
• The House of Stairs (1988)
• Gallowglass (1990)
• King Solomon's Carpet (1991)
• Asta's Book (1993)
• No Night is Too Long (1994)
• The Brimstone Wedding (1995)
• The Chimney-sweeper's Boy (1998)
• Grasshopper (2000)
• The Blood Doctor (2002)
• The Minotaur (2005)

Novellas

• Heartstones (1987)
• The Thief (2006)

Short story collections

• The Fallen Curtain (1976)
• Means of Evil (1979) (five Inspector Wexford stories)
• The Fever Tree (1982)
• The New Girlfriend (1985)
• The Copper Peacock (1991)
• Blood Lines (1995)
• Piranha to Scurfy (2000)

Non-fiction

• Ruth Rendell's Suffolk (1989)
• Undermining the Central Line (1989)
• The Reason Why: An Anthology of the Murderous Mind (1995)

Awards and nominations

• 1975 - Mystery Writers of America Best Short Story Edgar: The Fallen Curtain
• 1976 - Gold Dagger for Fiction: A Demon in my View
• 1979 - Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award (shortlist): A Sleeping Life
• 1980 - Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award (shortlist): Make Death Love Me
• 1981 - Arts Council National Book Award for Genre Fiction: The Lake of Darkness
• 1984 - Silver Dagger for Fiction: The Tree of Hands
• 1984 - Mystery Writers of America Best Short Story Edgar: The New Girlfriend
• 1986 - Gold Dagger for Fiction: Live Flesh
• 1986 - Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award (shortlist): The Tree of Hands
• 1986 - Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award (shortlist): An Unkindness of Ravens
• 1987 - Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award: A Dark-adapted Eye
• 1987 - Gold Dagger for Fiction: A Fatal Inversion
• 1988 - Angel Award for Fiction: The House of Stairs
• 1990 - Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence
• 1991 - Gold Dagger for Fiction: King Solomon's Carpet
• 1991 - Cartier Diamond Dagger for a Lifetime's Achievement in the Field
• 1996 - CBE
• 1997 - Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award
• 2004 - Mystery Ink Gumshoe Award for Lifetime Achievement
• 2005 - CWA Dagger of Daggers (best crime novel to have won the Gold Dagger award (shortlist)): A Fatal Inversion

External links

• 1990 audio interview with Ruth Rendell by Don Swaim of CBS Radio, RealAudio
• Gusworld Ruth Rendell information site with detailed bibliography
• Fatal Inversions detailed Barbara Vine information site with bibliography

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