Ruth Rendell (Barbara Vine) | Famous Authors with Secret Pseudonyms | TIME.com Famous Authors with Secret Pseudonyms By Samantha Grossman @sam_grossman July 14, 2013 Jerry Bauer / AP The prolific English mystery writer Ruth Rendell took up the unassuming pen name Barbara Vine in 1986. Under that name, she released 14 novels. As the author once explained to the National Post , the two distinct bylines offered the opportunity to hone two distinct voices. The works published under her real name feature more “excitement” and “sensation” while the works published under the pseudonym “don’t have any sort of mystery in them, they don’t have any revelations, really. They’re just really about people.” The author also said she used Vine to explore specific topics, like the evolution of morality. Oh, and Rendell’s got another alter ego too: she was made a a CBE in 1996 and her official title is Baroness Rendell of Babergh.

The House of Stairs by Barbara Vine · OverDrive: eBooks, audiobooks and videos for libraries Fiction Mystery The House of Stairs - an unputdownable crime classic from bestselling author Barbara Vine Lizzie hasn't seen her old friend, Bell, for some fourteen years, but when she spots her from a taxi in a London street she jumps out and pursues her despite 'all the terrible things' that passed between them. As Lizzie reveals those events, little by little, the women rekindle their friendship, with terrifying results ... '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 House of Stairs is a modern masterpiece of the crime genre and will leave you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love 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. Adobe EPUB eBook 434.7 KB Barbara Vine (Author) Barbara Vine was the pen-name of Ruth Rendell, and Viking published all of her books under that name. Rendell was an exceptional crime writer, with worldwide sales of approximately 20 million copies, and regular Sunday Times bestsellers. Rendell w... Barbara Vine Barbara Vine '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. The Child's Child is the new crime novel by bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine What sort of betrayal would drive a brother and sister apart? When Grace and her brother Andrew inherit their grandmother's house in Hampstead, they decide to move in together. It seems the obvious thing to do: they've always got on well, the house is large enough to split down the middle, and neither of them likes partying or loud music. There's one thing they've forgotten though: what if one of them wants to bring a lover into the house? When Andrew's partner James moves in, it alters the balance - with almost fatal consequences. Barbara Vine's is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell, and The Child's Child is the first book she has published under that name since The Birthday Present in 2008.

It's an intriguing examination of betrayal in families, and of those two once-unmentionable subjects, illegitimacy and homosexuality. A taut, thrilling read, it will be enjoyed by readers of P.D. James and Ian Rankin. 'Cracking stuff. The Vine continues to flourish . . . (A) miracle of storytelling with her customary aplomb and cool composure' Express on The Child's Child 'The Rendell/Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin Ruth rendall has published fourteen novels under the Vine name, two of which, Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet, won the prestigious Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Also available in Penguin by Barbara Vine: The Minotaur, The Blood Doctor, Grasshopper, The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, The Brimstone Wedding, No Night is Too Long, Asta's Book, King Solomon's Carpet, Gallowglass, The House of Stairs, A Dark-Adapted Eye.

Barbara Vine The House of Stairs - an unputdownable crime classic from bestselling author Barbara Vine Lizzie hasn't seen her old friend, Bell, for some fourteen years, but when she spots her from a taxi in a London street she jumps out and pursues her despite 'all the terrible things' that passed between them. As Lizzie reveals those events, little by little, the women rekindle their friendship, with terrifying results ... '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 House of Stairs is a modern masterpiece of the crime genre and will leave you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love 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. Barbara Vine No Night is Too Long is a classic crime novel by bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine Tim Cornish thought he'd gotten away with murder. For months after he'd killed his lover off the Alaskan coast, there hadn't been a word. But then the letters started to arrive. It seems that someone knows what Tim has done . . . This compelling thriller delivers such a dark picture of romantic love that murder seems its natural mate.

Frightening, suspenseful, and deeply unsettling, No Night is Too Long is a modern crime masterpiece and will be enjoyed by readers of P.D. James and Ian Rankin. 'The Rendell/Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin 'She deploys her peerless skills in blending the mundane, commonplace aspects of life with the murky impulses of desire and greed' Sunday Times Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. Ruth has published fourteen novels under the Vine name, two of which, Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet, won the prestigious Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Also available in Penguin by Barbara Vine: The Minotaur, The Blood Doctor, Grasshopper, The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, The Brimstone Wedding, No Night is Too Long, Asta's Book, King Solomon's Carpet, Gallowglass, The House of Stairs, A Dark-Adapted Eye. A Fatal Inversion - a classic thriller from the queen of crime Barbara Vine 'An absolute winner ... a gripping read from start to end' Daily Mail 'Brilliant. Vine has the kind of near-Victorian narrative drive ...

that compels a reader to go on turning the pages' Sunday Times In the long hot summer of 1976, a group of young people are camping in Wyvis Hall. Adam, Rufus, Shiva, Vivien and Zosie hardly ask why they are there or how they are to live; they scavenge, steal and sell the family heirlooms. In short, they exist. Ten years later, the bodies of a woman and child are discovered in the Hall's animal cemetery. Which woman? Whose child? 'I defy anyone to guess the conclusion ... the clues are cunningly planted, so that it seems one should have known all along. A most satisfying end' Daily Telegraph 'Nimbly written with all the Dickensian values of vivid characterization, fine prose style and a cunningly devised plot that shifts and twists and keeps you on the edge of your chair' Val Hennessy, Daily Mail A Fatal Inversion is a modern classic of the crime genre. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, 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. King Solomon's Carpet is a prize-winning crime classic from bestselling author Barbara Vine Winner of the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award 'The tension grows ... an overwhelming sense of foreboding ... when the unravelling takes place, it is brilliantly unexpected and original' The Times Jarvis Stringer lives in a crumbling schoolhouse overlooking a tube line, compiling his obsessive, secret history of London's Underground. His presence and his strange house draw a band of misfits into his orbit: young Alice, who has run away from her husband and baby; Tom, the busker who rescues her; truant Jasper who gets his kicks on the tube; and mysterious Axel, whose dark secret later casts a shadow over all of their lives.

Dispossessed and outcast, those who come to inhabit Jarvis's schoolhouse are gradually brought closer together in violent and unforeseen ways by London's forbidding and dangerous Undergound . . . 'I longed to know what would happen next. Towards the end the tension fairly gets you by the throat' Sunday Express 'Vine arouses a genuine fear that all that is normal is in danger of being lost' Sunday Times King Solomon's Carpet is a modern masterpiece of the crime genre and will leave you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, 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. The Chimney Sweeper's Boy - a classic crime novel by bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine 'Gripping, almost impossible to put down' Guardian 'One of the most frightening novels I have ever read ... Gerald Candless, the monster at the heart of the maze, is a marvellous creation' Amanda Craig, Express on Sunday When successful author Gerald Candless dies of a sudden heart attack, his eldest, adoring daughter Sarah embarks on a memoir of him and soon discovers that her perfect father was not all he appeared to be. That in fact he wasn't Gerald Candless at all. But then, who was he? And what terrible secret had driven him to live a lie for all those years? 'So ingeniously constructed, its truth and falsehoods are so deftly and convincingly interwoven, that its solution ...

is as jolting as a flash of lightning' Sunday Times 'About the power of taboos, transgressions, guilts, deceptions, horrors, atonements, upsets and upheavals ... gripping' Independent If you enjoy the crime novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love The Chimney Sweeper's Boy. 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. Asta's Book is a classic double-detective story by crime master Barbara Vine For a good, absorbing, well-told story, you could hardly better the unveiling of Asta's secret' Sunday Times It is 1905.

Asta and her husband Rasmus have come to East London from Denmark with their two little boys. With Rasmus constantly away on business, Asta keeps loneliness and isolation at bay by writing a diary. These diaries, published over seventy years later, reveal themselves to be more than a mere journal. For they seem to hold the key to an unsolved murder and to the mystery of a missing child. It falls to Asta's granddaughter Ann to unearth the buried secrets of nearly a century before. 'A dazzling domestic thriller' Guardian 'Obsessively readable' Sunday Telegraph 'Engrossing . . . a mixture of biography, true crime and romance people with vivid minor players and red with herrings' Independent on Sunday 'Absolutely enthralling ... the best yet from the Vine/Rendell bureau. Essential reading' Literary Review 'Simply put, Vine is one of the greatest writers ever' Scott Turow Asta's Bookis a modern crime masterpiece and will be enjoyed by readers of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow. 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. Barbara Vine The Minotaur - a thrilling novel from the bestselling queen of crime Barbara Vine Kerstin Kvist enters crumbling Lydstep Old Hall to live with the Cosways and to act as nurse to John: a grown man fed drugs by his family to control his lunatic episodes. But John's strangeness is grotesquely mirrored in that of his four sisters who roam the dark, mazy Essex country house under the strict gaze of eighty-year-old Mrs Cosway. Despite being treated as an outsider, Kerstin is nevertheless determined to help John. But she soon discovers that there are others in the family who are equally as determined that John remain isolated, for sinister reasons of their own ...

'The reader is kept in suspense throughout . . . vintage wine from the Rendell vine' Independent 'The Cosway family is a mesmerizing creation... I rushed through the last pages' Penelope Lively, Sunday Times 'Stealthy, credible, ingenious and addictive' Literary Review 'The Rendell/ Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin The Minotaur is a modern masterpiece of the crime genre and will leave you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, 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. '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. The Birthday Present by Barbara Vine - a gripping, psychological thriller packed with menace 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 If you like P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love The Bithday Present by Barbara Vine. 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.

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. The Blood Doctor by Barbara Vine - a crime masterpiece about ambition, obsession and bad blood 'An outstandingly original book' Sunday Times The current Lord Nanther, experiencing the reform of the House of Lords, embarks on a biography of his great-grandfather, the first Lord Nanther, favoured physician to Queen Victoria, expert on blood diseases and particularly the royal disease of haemophilia. What he uncovers begins to horrify him as he realizes that Nanther died a guilty man - carrying a horrific secret to the grave. Weaving effortlessly between past and present, public life and private life, The Blood Doctoris a superbly satisfying novel that will be adored by readers of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow.

'A magnificent novel' Daily Mail 'Intriguing and absorbing and wholly satisfying' Spectator 'Plotted with a jeweller's intricacy and ominous to the final sentence' Sunday Telegraph 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. Grasshopper is an enthralling, chilling novel by the bestselling queen of crime Barbara Vine '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 - a gargantuan electrified grasshopper - 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. Grasshopper is a modern crime masterpiece that will have you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, you will love 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. Barbara Vine Gallowglass is a thrilling crime classic from the bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine When Sandor snatched little Joe from the path of a London Tube train, he was quick to make clear the terms of the rescue. 'I saved your life,' he told the homeless youngster, 'so your life belongs to me now'. Sandor began to tell him a fairy-tale: an ageing prince, a kidnapped princess chained by one ankle, a missed rendezvous. But what did this mysterious story have to do with Sandor's preparations? Joe had only understood his own role: he was a gallowglass, the servant of a Chief... 'On one level this is a novel about kidnapping. On another its concerns are obsession, the destructive nature of romantic illusions, and love.

As Ms Vine unfolds it, nothing is quite what it seems' Guardian Gallowglass is a modern crime masterpiece that will have you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, 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. A Dark-Adapted Eye - Barbara Vine - Google Books Barbara Vine 0 Reviews A Dark-Adapted Eye - a prize-winning crime classic by bestselling author Barbara Vine Winner of the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award 'A rich, complex and beautifully crafted novel' P.D. James 'Compulsively readable ...

a carefully devised plot unfolded with the most cunning art. Wilkie Collins and Dickens would have admired it' Sunday Times Like most families they had their secrets . . . And they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. No onlooker would guess that prim Vera Hillyard and her beautiful, adored younger sister, Eden, were locked in a dark and bitter combat over one of those secrets. England in the fifties was not kind to women who erred, so they had to use every means necessary to keep the truth hidden behind closed doors - even murder. '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 modern classic. If you enjoy the crime novels of P.D. James, Ian Rankin and Scott Turow, 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. Remembering Ruth Rendell, Master Of Smart And Socially Aware Suspense : NPR Remembering Ruth Rendell, Master Of Smart And Socially Aware Suspense Embed Embed Remembering Ruth Rendell, Master Of Smart And Socially Aware Suspense Remembering Ruth Rendell, Master Of Smart And Socially Aware Suspense Embed Embed Ruth Rendell wrote more than 60 books, some under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. Max Nash/AP hide caption toggle caption Ruth Rendell wrote more than 60 books, some under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. Max Nash/AP When the news of Ruth Rendell's death broke last weekend, I searched for some of her novels on my mystery bookshelves.

Rendell, 85, wrote more than 60 novels, so I should've been able to find a few, but no dice. I'm forever giving Rendell's novels away to people who need a good book. What made Rendell extraordinary was her consummate simplicity. As a writer, she was akin to the medieval artist Giotto — or at least to the apocryphal story about Giotto, who, when asked to submit a sample of his work to the pope, proceeded to dip a brush in red paint and draw a perfect circle freehand. Likewise, Rendell flawlessly executed the basic elements of the classic British detective novel. Unlike the books written by her good friend and fellow mystery master P.D. James, Rendell's Chief Inspector Wexford novels aren't distinguished by their vivid off-kilter settings or by the Holmes-ian quirks of a loner detective.

Instead, when "Reg" Wexford was introduced in 1964 in Rendell's debut, From Doon With Death, readers met Detective Normal — a middle-aged married man with children, whose politics leaned left and who liked to open up a good book at the end of a rough day. Article continues after sponsorship Crimes in Wexford's world were committed in mundane locales: busy roads, suburban villas and even vicarages. The Wexford novels are as traditionally British as a hunk of bloody roast beef — overlaid, that is, with a piquant sauce of nouvelle social criticism. Because what Rendell did add to the basic formula was a contemporary awareness of racism and sexism. The vicar whose body is discovered in that vicarage in the Wexford novel called No Man's Nightingale is not your standard-issue Agatha Christie cleric, but rather a mixed-race single mother named Sarah Hussain, whose position as an ordained priest in the Church of England doesn't sit well with all her congregants.

Related NPR Stories Ruth Rendell, Taking Readers '13 Steps Down' Another recent Wexford novel called Not In The Flesh opens in time-honored fashion with a truffle-hunting hound unearthing the skeletal remains of a human hand in the English countryside. The story soon veers into less traditional byways when Wexford confronts the brutality of female genital mutilation among a community of Somali immigrants. By the way, Rendell, who was made a commander of the Order of the British Empire and sat in the House of Lords for Labour, campaigned in "real life" as well as in her fiction against the practice of female circumcision. One of the British obituaries for Rendell wisely pointed out that, through her death, we readers have lost not one, but two legendary suspense writers. That's because Rendell, starting in 1986, began writing more nuanced, intricate novels of psychological suspense under the pen name Barbara Vine.

Many years ago, a friend left a copy of A Dark-Adapted Eye, Barbara Vine's first novel, outside my apartment door with a note that said: "I wish I were reading this novel for the first time." That was one of the best gifts I've ever received and, subsequently, I've probably bought and given away more copies of that novel than any other. Rendell was a great admirer of Henry James and her Barbara Vine novels retrospectively trace a main character's dawning awareness of something "off" in his or her world. Here's a snippet from the opening of a recent Vine novel, called The Child's Child , in which two 20-something siblings inherit their grandmother's mansion. Our narrator, Grace, explains why she and her brother Andrew made the decision to live there together: Surely [we thought] a house with four living-rooms, six bedrooms, and three bathrooms ... was big enough for a man and woman who always got on with each other. ... There was only one thing we never thought about, though why not I don't know. We were both young, and ... each had had several partners, and one of us, perhaps both, was likely to have a lover living in.

In Andrew's case that happened quite soon after we moved in. You already know from the get-go that situation isn't going to end well; the thrill, of course, lies in discovering why. A final stand-alone Rendell novel called Dark Corners is scheduled for publication this October. Like so many of her other fans, I'm grateful to have one last Rendell mystery ahead of me to read for the first time. Barbara Vine · OverDrive: eBooks, audiobooks and videos for libraries Sign up Barbara Vine Barbara Vine was the pen-name of Ruth Rendell, and Viking published all of her books under that name. Rendell was an exceptional crime writer, with worldwide sales of approximately 20 million copies, and regular Sunday Times bestsellers. 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. Sort Ruth Rendell obituary | Books | The Guardian Ruth Rendell Ruth Rendell obituary Crime novelist famed for her Inspector Wexford books who also wrote dark and chilling thrillers under the pen name Barbara Vine Ruth Rendell in 2004. She liked to concentrate more on character and psychology rather than old-fashioned police procedure in her novels. Photograph: ITV/Rex Saturday 2 May 2015 09.03 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 19 July 2016 09.45 EDT Share on Messenger Close Ruth Rendell, Lady Rendell of Babergh, also known as Barbara Vine, who has died aged 85, was a literary phenomenon. From 1964, when her country copper, Reg Wexford, first stepped before the reading public in From Doon With Death , she wrote more than 50 crime novels and seven books of short stories.

Many of them were adapted for television or made into feature films; the Wexford books in particular were an enormous success on TV, with the actor George Baker playing Wexford as a big, gruff, rural policeman, solving crime in the fictional Sussex town of Kingsmarkham. But Rendell was never satisfied with producing the annual whodunnit. She demonstrated this when, rather than follow her first Wexford novel with more of the same, she daringly jumped away from the classic English mystery in her second book, To Fear a Painted Devil (1965), and gave readers a taste of the psychological thrillers to come. Ruth Rendell: In quotes Read more The cliched view of Rendell is that she suddenly changed her style when, in the 1980s, she started writing as Barbara Vine, but the truth is that from the beginning, even in the Wexford tales, she concentrated more on character and psychology than old-fashioned police procedure. She wrote 24 Wexford books and produced an equal number of thrillers under the name Rendell.

Her first novel as Barbara Vine was A Dark-Adapted Eye (1986), which won the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe award. The next year, a second Barbara Vine, A Fatal Inversion, won her the Crime Writers’ Association Golden Dagger. The big difference with the Barbara Vine stories was that in them she went inside the heads of her psychopathic killers and rapists. It was this that made them so dark and chilling, an uncomfortable read for fans of Wexford who were used to the protection of the country officer standing between them and an unsafe world. Because of this, Rendell’s fans fell into two rather warring camps, those who liked the Wexford stories and those who felt that Barbara Vine was a great “real” novelist breaking new ground. The books were all, however, bestsellers. There might also have been a third camp, those who loved her wonderful short stories. This was a dying, or dead, market in Britain, but Rendell was able to sell short stories in the US to publications such as the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.

Although Rendell did not like the title often bestowed on her – queen of crime – calling it snide and sexist, she did not go along with the many reviewers, among them AN Wilson and PD James , who called her a great novelist. “Nobody in their senses is going to call me a first-class writer,” she said. “I don’t mind because I do the very best that I can and thousands, millions of people enjoy my books.” Pinterest George Baker as Detective Chief Inspector Reg Wexford and Louie Ramsay as Dora Wexford in ITV’s The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, 1988. Photograph: ITV/Rex Features A very private person, who could get prickly with interviewers, she nevertheless said that she was going to take an active part in politics when she was made a life peer in 1997. That year she had given £10,000 to the Labour election campaign. In the Lords, Rendell supported the bill to legalise assisted suicide: “The way I’m going it won’t be long, but all my aunts lived into their 90s.”.

Daughter of Ebba (nee Krause) and Arthur Grasemann, she was born in South Woodford, north-east London . Her mother, who had been born in Sweden and lived in Denmark until she was 12, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and Ruth, an only child, was brought up in part by a housekeeper to whom, she said, she was much closer than she was to her mother. Her father she described as “endlessly patient, endlessly loving, and endlessly kind”. She put a lot of him into Wexford. She went to Loughton high school, in Essex, and was, she said, very unhappy. But she began to find herself when she left school and became a journalist. She worked on the Chigwell Times and by the age of 22 was a top reporter. Trouble came her way when she wrote a story about an old deserted house and invented a ghost; the owner of the house threatened to sue. Shortly afterwards she skipped the annual meeting of a local tennis club and wrote the story up from the chairman’s pre-prepared speech of which she had a copy.

After her piece appeared in print she learned that the chairman had dropped dead of a heart attack in the middle of delivering it. She quit before she was sacked. Ruth Rendell: five key works Read more Aged 20 she had married Don Rendell, a reporter whom she met when they were both covering an inquest. He became a financial journalist on the Daily Mail and for 10 years Rendell was a wife and mother. She described these as happy years but during that time she went through a long apprenticeship, writing six novels, all of which were rejected. When her seventh, From Doon With Death, was accepted by the small publishing house of John Long, she received £75 for it. “No interviews then,” she said, “nor for the next two novels.” Later she was frequently interviewed, though she was never a willing subject. Asked once too often what she would have been if she hadn’t become a novelist, she said a country and western singer. It came as a shock when, during an interview oon Norwegian TV, she was handed a microphone and asked to sing.

Asked on BBC Radio 4 about how she wrote her short stories, she said: “Oh they just come to me.” She described what drove her to write by saying: “I like to sit at a desk and type.” Rendell claimed that, when writing her novels, she never did any research but “simply made things up”. Later on, she hired a researcher, but the great detail she gave her stories was the result, she said, of going on long walks, especially in London. She became an expert on parks in the capital. Her hobby was changing houses; she moved 18 times. For several years, she lived in a pink 16th-century manor house set in 11 acres in Suffolk, before returning to London. Her only digression from a rather set, humdrum routine came when in 1975 she divorced her husband and then two years later remarried him. Asked why, she said that after they separated, she found she couldn’t live without him, because he was the sort of man with whom you could go on a 200-mile car trip and never have to say a word.

No one can equal Ruth Rendell's range or accomplishment | Val McDermid Read more The Mystery Writers of America gave her three Edgars and the British Crimewriters’ Association awarded her several Golden and Silver Daggers. In 1991 she received the Cartier Diamond award for outstanding contribution to the crime genre. She showed no sign of slowing up: No Man’s Nightingale, published in 2013, was a classic Wexford; and in 2014 she created a new detective, Colin Quell, for The Girl Next Door. Rendell was very generous and gave a large amount of money away. She was vice-president of the housing charity Shelter and raised money for Little Hearts Matter, which helps children with heart disease. She said she knew what it was like to have no cash, adding: “I don’t think it’s good for people to be born into money and not know what it is never to have it.” Her husband died in 1999. She is survived by her son, Simon.

• Ruth Barbara Rendell, Lady Rendell of Babergh, writer, born 17 February 1930; died 2 May 2015 Barbara Vine author information Barbara Vine author biography, plus links to books by Barbara Vine. Author Snapshot Barbara Vine Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. Ruth Rendell sits in the House of Lords as a Labour peer. She lives in Maida Vale, London. This biography was last updated on 03/10/2009. A note about the biographies We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate. However, with over 2500 lives to keep track of it's inevitable that some won't be as current or as complete as we would like. So, please help us - if the information about a particular author is out of date, inaccurate or simply very short, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know . Authors and those connected with authors: If you wish to make changes to your bio, please send your complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we can replace the old with the new.

Free books to read and review (US only) Find books by time period, setting & theme Read-alike suggestions by book and author Book club discussions Free books to read and review (US only) Find books by time period, setting & theme Read-alike suggestions by book and author Book club discussions No Night is Too Long - Barbara Vine - Google Books No Night is Too Long 0 Reviews No Night is Too Long is a classic crime novel by bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine Tim Cornish thought he'd gotten away with murder. For months after he'd killed his lover off the Alaskan coast, there hadn't been a word. But then the letters started to arrive. It seems that someone knows what Tim has done . . . This compelling thriller delivers such a dark picture of romantic love that murder seems its natural mate. Frightening, suspenseful, and deeply unsettling, No Night is Too Long is a modern crime masterpiece and will be enjoyed by readers of P.D. James and Ian Rankin.

'The Rendell/Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin 'She deploys her peerless skills in blending the mundane, commonplace aspects of life with the murky impulses of desire and greed' Sunday Times Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. Ruth has published fourteen novels under the Vine name, two of which, Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet, won the prestigious Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Also available in Penguin by Barbara Vine: The Minotaur, The Blood Doctor, Grasshopper, The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, The Brimstone Wedding, No Night is Too Long, Asta's Book, King Solomon's Carpet, Gallowglass, The House of Stairs, A Dark-Adapted Eye.

Question: Which author uses the pen name Barbara Vine?
Answer: Ruth Rendell