When Stuart Font decides to throw a house-warming party in his new flat, he invites all the people in his building. After some deliberation, he even includes the unpleasant caretaker and his wife. There are a few other genuine friends on the list, but he definitely does not want to include his girlfriend, Claudia, as that might involve asking her husband. The party will be one everyone remembers. But not for the right reasons. All the occupants of Lichfield House are about to experience a dramatic change in their lives... Living opposite, in reclusive isolation, is a young, beautiful Asian woman, christened Tigerlily by Stuart. As though from some strange urban fairytale, she emerges to exert a terrible spell. And Mr and Mrs Font, the worried parents, will have even more cause for concern about their handsome but hopelessly naive son. Darkly humorous, piercingly observant of human behaviour, Ruth Rendell has created here another compelling fable of our lives and crimes.

From the author of End in Tears comes a chilling thriller for Quick Reads — books for emergent readers, published as part of the UK's World Book Day Adult Literacy Initiative 2006. What you do in childhood may come back to haunt you. Stealing things from people who had upset her was something Polly did quite a lot. There was her Aunt Pauline; a girl at school; a boyfriend who left. And there was the man on the plane... Humiliated and scared by a total stranger Polly does what she always does. She steals something. But she never could have imagined that her desire for revenge would have such terrifying results.

The murder of Angela Hathall was extremely well planned. The only clue left was a single fingerprint with an L-shaped scar. The detective in charge, Reg Wexford, suspects that Angela's husband Robert Hathall killed his wife. But one question troubles Wexford most of all. Who is the mysterious woman Wexford is sure Hathall is seeing? Does she have an L-shaped scar on her finger?

The murder of Angela Hathall was extremely well planned. The only clue left was a single fingerprint with an L-shaped scar. The detective in charge, Reg Wexford, suspects that Angela's husband Robert Hathall killed his wife. But one question troubles Wexford most of all. Who is the mysterious woman Wexford is sure Hathall is seeing? Does she have an L-shaped scar on her finger?

A father's worst nightmare. It's first light and George Marshalson's daughter hasn't returned home. He doesn't yet know that she never will — that her body lies prone just yards from the family house. Or that he will himself make the shocking discovery. Chief Inspector Wexford has never known a case of a father finding the murdered body of his daughter. He has daughters of his own but can barely imagine himself in Mr Marshalson's position. Tasked with picking through the pieces of a shattered family, Wexford unearths some surprising secrets about the dead teenager's lifestyle. And when a second girl is found murdered — a victim unquestionably linked to the first — Wexford has to put his own family problems aside to tackle what will become of the most disturbing and emotional case of his career.

A classic Rendellian loner, Mix Cellini is superstitious about the number 13. Living in a decaying house in Notting Hill, Mix is obsessed with 10 Rillington Place, where the notorious Christie committed a series of foul murders. He is also infatuated with a beautiful model who lives nearby — a woman who would not look at him twice. Mix's landlady, Gwendolen Chawcer is equally reclusive — living her life through her library of books. Both landlady and lodger inhabit weird worlds of their own. But when reality intrudes into Mix's life, a long pent-up violence explodes.

The first girl had a bite mark on her neck. When the tabloids got hold of the story, they immediately called the killer 'The Rottweiler', and the name stuck. The latest body was discovered very near Inez Ferry's antique shop in Marylebone. Someone spotted a shadowy figure running away past the station, but couldn't say for sure if it was a man or a woman. There were only two other clues. The murderer seemed to have a preference for strangling his victims and then removing something personal — like a cigarette lighter or a necklace... Since her actor husband died, too early into their marriage, Inez supplemented her modest income by taking in tenants above the shop. The unpredictably obsessive activities of 'The Rottweiler' would exert a profound influence on this heterogeneous little community, especially when the suspicion began to emerge that one of them might be a homicidal maniac.

Teddy was born in squalor. Now he is a craftsman determined to banish ugliness from his life. Harriet is a beautiful, bored trophy wife who employs a series of repairmen for her sexual satisfaction. And Francine is a college student who witnessed her mother's murder and now must free herself from her father's manipulative second wife. Connected by strands of chance, their lives intersecting in the strangest of ways, these three people are on a journey that will bring them to each other — and to a beautiful ivy-covered home with at least one dead body in the basement....

A mother and a daughter live quietly in the rustic gatehouse of Shrove House, an isolated British estate. Their life seems perfectly ordinary except that daughter Liza has been kept isolated from the outside world for all of her sixteen years. And that he has seen her beautiful mother commit murder... more than once. Now, as the police come searching for a missing man, Liza's sheltered, strange world begins to fall apart. Piece by piece she will reveal her mother's tale of betrayal, desire, and obsession. Step-by-step we discover how much like mother, like daughter she is.

Der 25-jährige Philip lebt mit seinen beiden Schwestern noch bei seiner Mutter und führt ein unspektakuläres Leben. Aber das ändert sich, als seine jüngere Schwester heiratet: Philip verliebt sich Hals über Kopf in eine der fünf Brautjungfern. Zu seinem Erstaunen erwidert die schöne Senta seine Gefühle. Sie ist ebenso verführerisch wie geheimnisvoll — und sie lebt in einer bizarren Scheinwelt. Philip gerät in einen geradezu hypnotischen Sog von Leidenschaft und Erotik. Dabei bemerkt er zunächst kaum, dass auch seine Welt zunehmend aus den Fugen gerät. Bis Senta einen Liebesbeweis der ganz besonderen Art von ihm fordert: einen Mord...

Who could have suspected that the exciting stag party for the groom would be the prelude to the murder of his close friend Charlie Hatton? And Charlie's death was only the first in a string of puzzling murders involving small-time gangsters, cheating husbands, and loose women. Now Chief Inspector Wexford and his assistant join forces with the groom to track down a killer...

Elizabeth Nightingale found peace and tranquility on her nightly walks through the rich, dense forests surrounding Myfleet Manor. But the peace she treasured was shattered one night when she found death waiting in the woods. Chief Inspector Wexford and his colleague Inspector Burden find a most unsavory case on their hands and must use all their wit and wisdom to solve it...

It was better than a hotel, this anonymous room on a secluded side street of a small country town. No register to sign, no questions asked, and for five bucks a man could have three hours of undisturbed, illicit lovemaking. Then one evening a man with a knife turned the love nest into a death chamber. The carpet was soaked with blood — but where was the corpse? Meanwhile, a beautiful, promiscuous woman is missing — along with the bundle of cash she'd had in her pocket. The truth behind it all will keep even veteran mystery fans guessing through the very last page.