Most Popular Books by Barbara Vine

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.

When their grandmother dies, Grace and Andrew Easton inherit her sprawling, book-filled London home, Dinmont House. Rather than sell it, the adult siblings move in together, splitting the numerous bedrooms and studies. The arrangement is unusual, but ideal for the affectionate pair -- until the day Andrew brings home a new boyfriend. A devilishly handsome novelist, James Derain resembles Cary Grant, but his strident comments about Grace''s doctoral thesis soon puncture the house''s idyllic atmosphere. When he and Andrew witness their friend''s murder outside a London nightclub, James begins to unravel, and what happens next will change the lives of everyone in the house. Just as turmoil sets in at Dinmont House, Grace escapes into reading a manuscript -- a long-lost novel from 1951 called The Child''s Child -- never published, owing to its frank depictions of an unwed mother and a homosexual relationship. The book is the story of two siblings born a few years after World War One. This brother and sister, John and Maud, mirror the present-day Andrew and Grace: a homosexual brother and a sister carrying an illegitimate child. Acts of violence and sex will reverberate through their stories. The Child''s Child is an ingenious novel-within-a-novel about family, betrayal, and disgrace. A master of psychological suspense, Ruth Rendell, writing as Barbara Vine, takes us where violence and social taboos collide. She shows how society''s treatment of those it once considered undesirable has changed -- and how sometimes it hasn''t.

''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 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. 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.

From the author Time magazine calls “the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world,” comes an elegant and gripping new novel that blurs the line between psychological suspense and Gothic horror. Kerstin Krist arrives at the vine-covered Lydstep Old Hall in rural Essex to care for John Cosway, a former mathematical genius, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and kept under heavy sedation. John is the sole heir of the immense Cosway estate. As he takes his daily walks or sits quivering in a labyrinthine library, the rest of the family plots their own ways of coming into the fortune. It is classic Barbara Vine–an absolutely enthralling tale that keeps turning and twisting until the very last page.

As Sarah researches her famous father''s past for her memoir, shocking secrets come to light and threaten her world.

A GRIPPING, PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER PACKED WITH MENACE. IF YOU LIKE P.D. JAMES, IAN RANKIN AND SCOTT TUROW, YOU WILL LOVE THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT. ''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

“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--one of the great electrified structures that dot the English countryside like so many gargantuan grasshoppers--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.

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.

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 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.

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

Sometimes it’s best to leave the past alone. For when biographer Martin Nanther looks into the life of his famous great-grandfather Henry, Queen Victoria’s favorite physician, he discovers some rather unsettling coincidences, like the fact that the doctor married the sister of his recently murdered fiancée. The more Martin researches his distant relative, the more fascinated—and horrified—he becomes. Why did people have a habit of dying around his great grandfather? And what did his late daughter mean when she wrote that he’s done “monstrous, quite appalling things”? Barbara Vine (a.k.a. Ruth Rendell) deftly weaves this story of an eminent Victorian with a modern yarn about the embattled biographer, who is watching the House of Lords prepare to annul membership for hereditary peers and thus strip him of his position. Themes of fate and family snake throughout this teasing psychological suspense, a typically chilling tale from a master of the genre.

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.

''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.

Sandor ist ein ausgezeichneter Geschichtenerzähler. Und Sandor ist in jeder Beziehung großartig: dunkles, dichtes Haar, lange, schlanke Hände, wunderschön ist sein Lächeln. Wenn man Sandor gesehen hat, gefällt einem keiner mehr. Klein-Joe, gutmütig und eifrig bemüht zu gefallen, hört ihm begierig zu. Auch als klar wird, warum Sandor Klein-Joe gerettet hat, kann sich Joe nicht von ihm lösen.

Vera Hillyard wurde als eine der letzten Frauen in England 1950 gehenkt. Seitdem überschattet dieses Ereignis das Leben der Familie Longley. Denn: »Mord ist eine Sache der ganzen Familie. Er zeichnet das Kainsmal auf viele Stirnen.« Jahre später versucht die Nichte, Licht in die Vergangenheit zu bringen. Ist sie wirklich die geborene Mörderin?

Salomons Zauberteppich war aus grüner Seide und so groß, daß beliebig viele Menschen darauf Platz fanden. König Salomon nannte dem Teppich das Reiseziel, und der erhob sich in die Lüfte und setzte alle an der gewünschten Stelle ab. – Welcher fliegende Teppich trägt uns heute überallhin? Die Londoner U-Bahn! Von ihr aber gibt es Begebenheiten zu erzählen, die alles andere als märchenhaft sind...

Clodagh Brown klettert für ihr Leben gern: zunächst auf Bäume, dann, als Teenager mit ihrem ersten Freund Daniel, auf Hochspannungsmaste. In späteren Jahren ist sie auf Londons Dächern unterwegs und erhascht, gemeinsam mit Gleichaltrigen, einen Blick in fremde Leben. Doch die Freiheit in den Lüften hat einen entsetzlichen Preis ...

Die alte Dame Stella vererbt ihrer jungen Pflegerin Jenny ein leeres Haus im Moor und ein dunkles Geheimnis. Doch auch Jenny verbirgt etwas, das keiner wissen darf. Abgründig spannend und zutiefst beunruhigend zeichnet Barbara Vine das Doppelporträt zweier faszinierender, höchst unterschiedlicher Frauen, für die das Paradies der Erinnerung auch eine Hölle ist.

Ein langer, heißer Sommer im Jahr 1976. Eine zufällig zusammengewürfelte Gruppe junger Leute sammelt sich um Adam, der ein altes Haus in Suffolk geerbt hat. Sorglos leben sie in den Tag hinein, lieben, stehlen, existieren. Zehn Jahre später werden auf dem bizarren Tierfriedhof des Ortes zwei Skelette gefunden – das einer jungen Frau und das eines Säuglings...

Ivor Tesham, ein Machtmensch, Draufgänger und Politiker, macht seiner anderweitig verheirateten Geliebten zum achtundzwanzigsten Geburtstag ein riskantes Überraschungsgeschenk. Ein Geschenk, das seine Karriere und sein Leben zu zerstören droht. Sex, Lügen, Karriere und die Angst vor dem Skandal: ›Das Geburtstagsgeschenk‹ ist eine bitterböse Satire über einen ebenso attraktiven wie amoralischen britischen Politiker, der die Verlogenheit einer ganzen Ära verkörpert.

Als Cosettes Ehemann stirbt, wagt sie im vorgerückten Alter einen Neuanfang, verlässt ihren Landsitz und erwirbt das ›Haus der Stufen‹. In diesem offenen Haus in einem Londoner Vorort gehen Alt und Jung ein und aus. Ja, sie leben in einer gemischten WG zusammen, in der entspannten Atmosphäre der 60er Jahre. Bis Bell Sager, eine ebenso schöne wie bodenlos abgründige Frau, die Bühne betritt.

Einsam im fremden England, vertraut Asta, eine junge Dänin, ihre Freuden und Nöte einem Tagebuch an: Probleme mit dem Mann, ihre Bemühungen um Eigenständigkeit in der anderen Umgebung, das Nahen des Ersten Weltkrieges... Kein leichtes Schicksal, wäre nicht Swanny, ihre Lieblingstochter. Doch ob Swanny überhaupt Astas Tochter ist? Und könnte es Verbindungen geben zu dem skandalösen Mordprozeß im Fall Roper?

Sie waren Papas ein und alles, aber sie hatten keine Ahnung, wer Papa in Wirklichkeit war. Die älteste Tochter Sarah beginnt, die Lebensgeschichte des verstorbenen Vaters zu schreiben. Sarah taucht ein in die Untiefen eines Lebens, das wie das Meer an der Küste von Devonshire, an der der Familiensitz liegt, morsche Bruchstücke freigibt. Zum Vorschein kommen beängstigende Details eines Doppellebens.

Asta and Raymus come to Hackney in 1905 from Denmark. To keep loneliness at bay, Asta writes her diaries. When these are published 70 years later, they uncover the truth of an unsolved crime.