The New Girl Friend was published in 1985, and the title story earned Rendell her second Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe award. 'Every tale is carefully crafted and climaxed, her feel for lurking malevolence is as assured as ever.' -The Times

Then came The Copper Peacock in 1991, a collection of nine short horror stories in which 'the macabre potential of blameless situations such as village fetes, aquariums and even the broom cupboard are explored to provoke maximum unease in readers.' -Sunday Times

Blood Lines, first published in 1995, includes the long title story and a novella, The Strawberry Tree, as well as nine short murder mystery stories. 'Ruth Rendell remains one of the most stylish, chilling and challenging writers around.' -Tribune

Piranha to Scurfy, a collection of disturbing psychological short stories followed in 2000. 'Horror does not shake its gory locks directly at us, but hovers on the periphery of our inner vision, hidden among the ordinary, the everyday.' - Jane Shilling, Sunday Telegraph

The ultimately terrifying short story collection from Ruth Rendell, the world's best living crime writer and author of psychological thrillers including Thirteen Steps Down and Tigerlily's Orchids. An anthology packed to the brim with mystery, murder, pathological obsession and criminal madness... All set in the peaceful English countryside.

About the Author

Ruth Rendell was an exceptional crime writer, and will be remembered as a legend in her own lifetime. Her groundbreaking debut novel, From Doon With Death, was first published in 1964 and introduced the reader to her enduring and popular detective, Inspector Reginald Wexford, who went on to feature in twenty-four of her subsequent novels.

With worldwide sales of approximately 20 million copies, Rendell was a regular Sunday Times bestseller. Her sixty bestselling novels include police procedurals, some of which have been successfully adapted for TV, stand-alone psychological mysteries, and a third strand of crime novels under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. Very much abreast of her times, the Wexford books in particular often engaged with social or political issues close to her heart.

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. Her final novel, Dark Corners, was published in October 2015.

Reviews
Rendell knows how to make your hair stand up straight on your head -- Maeve Binchy

Rendell's eerie capacity to comprehend disturbed criminal minds continues to astonish

* The Times *
It's impossible to read the terrors abroad in her shabby streetscapes without total emotional involvement * Sunday Times *
Death seems cosy compared with the living Rendell describes... each story is like a condensed, polished novel * Daily Telegraph *
Rendell's psychological novels remain in a class of their own * Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph *



Book Information
ISBN 9780091796839
Author Ruth Rendell
Format Paperback
Page Count 592
Imprint Hutchinson
Publisher Cornerstone
Weight(grams) 761g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 153mm * 42mm