New Releases by BARBARA VINE

An Englishwoman writing a biography of her father, a famous novelist, discovers that as a young man he changed names, taking the name of a boy who died in infancy. She goes looking for the reason and discovers murder.

Een ex-kidnapper is zo geobsedeerd door een vroeger slachtoffer dat hij een nieuwe aanslag beraamt.

In a tale of sexual obsession, mistaken identity, and murder, Tim believes that he has gotten away with murder for months after his crime, until a series of seemingly innocuous but ominous letters begins to arrive.

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.

A beautiful woman fleeing a loveless marriage disappears into the crowds of modern London, taking refuge in a Victorian schoolhouse haunted by a dreadful secret. "Beautifully written and hypnotically readable . . . an elegantly designed thiller!"--Wall Street Journal.

The memoirs of a young Danish woman living in London at the turn of the century are published to huge commercial success. Many years later, the woman''s granddaughter discovers that one entry has been cut out of the original journals--an entry that may shed light on an unsolved multiple murder.

Un Amour importun. Rendell. Ruth4070.

"A pair of male lovers are enticed to take part in a kidnapping plot"--Best Books for Public Libraries, c1992, p. 407.

''In a masterly and hypnotic synthesis of past, present and terrifying future, Vine casts a stone into her dark pond and lets the ripples spread . . . she has created a work that is both compelling and disturbing''. Sunday Times. ''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 second novel by Ruth Rendell writing as Barbara Vine is the story of the discovery of human bones buried in an animal cemetery and its lethal ramifications. With consummate skill, the mystery is unraveled, keeping the reader guessing about the killers'' and the victims'' identities.