Ruth Rendell has 48 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 44 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 40 ratings. The most-rated is End in Tears.
End in Tears
Summary
A lump of concrete dropped deliberately from a little stone bridge kills the wrong person. The young woman in the car behind is spared. But only for a while... A few weeks later, George Marshalson lives every father's worst nightmare: he discovers the murdered body of his eighteen-year-old daughter on the side of the road. Wexford steps into the case but soon a second teenage girl is murdered - a victim unquestionably linked to the first - and another family is shattered...
©2007 Ruth Rendell (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
To Fear a Painted Devil
Summary
Gossip in tiny Linchester is raised to new heights when young Patrick Selby dies on the night of his beautiful wife's birthday party. The whole neighborhood was there, witness to the horrible attack of wasps Peter suffered at the end of the evening. But did Peter die of the stings? Dr Greenleaf thinks not. After all, wasps aren't the only creatures that kill with poison . . .
©1965 Ruth Rendell (P)2014 Audible, Inc
From Doon with Death
Summary
The first case for DCI Reg Wexford. When Margaret Parsons disappears, it's assumed that she's run off with another man. But then the missing woman's body is found and a startling discovery is made when Mr. Parsons lets the police into his home...
©2007 Ruth Rendell (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Babes in the Wood
Summary
With floods threatening both the town of Kingsmarkham and his own home and no end to the rain in sight, Chief Inspector Wexford already has his hands full when he learns that two local teenagers have gone missing along with their sitter, Joanna Troy. Their hysterical mother is convinced that all three have drowned, and as the hours stretch into days Wexford suspects a case of kidnapping, perhaps connected with an unusual sect called the Church of the Good Gospel. But when the sitter's smashed-up car is found at the bottom of a local quarry - occupied by a battered corpse - the investigation takes on a very different hue. For her 19th Chief Inspector Wexford mystery, Ruth Rendell tells a story that is as taut and atmospheric as anything she has ever written. Ruth Rendell has won many awards, including the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger.
©2004 Ruth Rendell (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
A Judgement in Stone
Summary
Four members of the Coverdale family - George, Jacqueline, Melinda and Giles - died in the space of fifteen minutes on the 14th February, St Valentine's Day. Eunice Parchman, the housekeeper, shot them down on a Sunday evening while they were watching opera on television. Two weeks later she was arrested for the crime. But the tragedy neither began nor ended there...
©2011 Ruth Rendell (P)2011 Random House Audio Go
The Monster in the Box
Summary
The Monster In The Box is the latest addition to Ruth Rendell's classic and beguiling Inspector Wexford series. In this enthralling new audiobook, Rendell, "the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world" (Time), takes Inspector Wexford back to his days as a young policeman, and to the man he has long suspected of murder - serial murder. Outside the house where Wexford investigated his first murder case - a woman found strangled in her bedroom - he noticed a short, muscular man wearing a scarf and walking a dog. He gave Wexford an unnerving stare. Without any solid evidence, Wexford began to suspect that this man - Eric Targo - was the killer. Over the years there are more unsolved, apparently motiveless murders in the town of Kingsmarkham, and Wexford continues to quietly suspect that the increasingly prosperous Targo - van driver, property developer, kennel owner, and animal lover - is behind them. Now, half a lifetime later, Wexford spots Targo back in Kingsmarkham after a long absence. Wexford tells his longtime partner, Mike Burden, about his suspicions, but Burden dismisses them as fantasy. Meanwhile, Burden's wife, Jenny has suspicions of her own. She believes that the Rahmans, a highly respectable family from Pakistan, may be forcing their daughter, Tamima, into an arranged marriage - or worse.
©2009 Ruth Rendell (P)2009 Phoenix
No Man's Nightingale
Summary
Sarah Hussain was not popular in the community of Kingsmarkham. She was born of mixed parents - a white Irishwoman and an immigrant Indian Hindu. She was also the Reverend of St Peter's church. But it came as a profound shock to everyone when she was found strangled in the vicarage. A garrulous cleaner, Maxine, also shared by the Wexfords, discovers the body. In his retirement, the former Detective Chief Inspector is devoting much time to reading, and has little patience with Maxine's prattle. But when his old friend Mike Burden asks him to assist on the case as Crime Solutions Adviser (unpaid), Wexford is obliged to pay more precise attention. Wexford retains a relish for work and a curiosity about people, which is invaluable in detective work; while Burden tends to jump to conclusions. But he is wise enough to listen to the man whose office he inherited, and whose experience makes him a formidable ally.
©2013 Ruth Rendell (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Not in the Flesh
Summary
Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth something less savoury: a human hand. The body, as Chief Inspector Wexford is informed later, has lain buried for 10 years or so, wrapped in a purple cotton sheet. The post mortem cannot reveal the precise cause of death. The only clue is a crack in one of the dead man’s ribs. The police computer stores a long list of missing persons: something like 500 people every day disappear nationwide. So Wexford knows he is going to have a job on his hands to identify the corpse. And then, only about 20 yards away from the woodland burial site, another body is found.
©2007 Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Vault
Summary
Chief Inspector Reg Wexford has retired. He and his wife, Dora, now divide their time between Kingsmarkham and their daughter, Sheila’s, coach house in Hampstead. Wexford takes great pleasure in his books, but, for all the benefits of a more relaxed lifestyle, he misses being the law. But a chance meeting with an old acquaintance in a London street changes everything. Tom Ede is now a Detective Superintendent, and is very keen to recruit Wexford as an adviser on a difficult case. The bodies of two women and a man have been discovered in the old coal hole of an attractive house in St John's Wood. None carries identification. But the man's pockets contain expensive jewelry. To Wexford, this is definitely a case worth coming out of retirement for. He is intrigued and excited by the challenge, but unaware that this new investigative role will bring him into extreme physical danger.
©2011 Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Rottweiler
Summary
The first girl had a bite mark on her neck, but they traced the DNA to her boyfriend. But the tabloids got hold of the story and called the killer The Rottweiler and the name stuck. The latest murder takes place very near Inez Ferry's antique shop in Marylebone. When the Rottweiler’s trinkets start showing up in the shop, suddenly, everyone Inez knows is a suspect, and the killer feels all too close. Someone saw a shadowy figure running away past the station, but the only other clues are that the murderer usually strangles his victims and removes something personal - like a cigarette lighter or a necklace. Since her husband died, Inez has supplemented her income by taking in tenants. The murderous activities of the sinister 'Rottweiler' will exert a profound influence on the lives of this heterogeneous little community, especially when the suspicion emerges that one of them may be a homicidal maniac.
©2003 Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Portobello
Summary
The Portobello area of West London has a rich personality. It also has an edge to it. There is nothing safe about Portobello.Eugene Wren was 50, with prematurely white hair. He also had an addictive personality. But he had cut back on alcohol and had given up cigarettes - which was just as well, considering he was going out with a doctor. On a shopping trip one day, Eugene, quite by chance, came across an envelope containing money. He picked it up. For some reason, rather than report the matter to the police, he wrote a note explaining what he had found and stuck it up on a lamp post near his house.This note would link the lives of very different people - each with their obsessions, problems, dreams, and despairs.
©2008 Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd (P)2009 BBC Audiobooks Ltd
Road Rage
Summary
A bypass is planned in Kingsmarkham, but before the protestors make their presence felt, the badly decomposed body of a young woman is discovered. Burden thinks he knows the identity of the murderer, but Wexford is not convinced.
©1997 Kingsmarkham Enterprises, LLC. (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Ruth Rendell BBC Radio Drama Collection
Summary
Full-cast dramatisations of seven of Ruth Rendell's tense psychological thrillers. This collection includes: The Bridesmaid: a beautiful stone statue and her living double lead Philip into a nightmare of obsession and murder. Going Wrong: besotted with his childhood sweetheart, Leonora, psychopathic Guy Curran will do anything to make her his. King Solomon’s Carpet: London’s Underground links a group of misfit housemates and is the catalyst for a devastating crime in this compelling tale, written under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. People Don’t Do Such Things: a suburban couple befriend a charismatic novelist, but their relationship soon slips into sinister territory. The Fever Tree: on safari in South Africa, Ford and Tricia find the tensions in their marriage exacerbated by the unforgiving wilderness. The Dreadful Day of Judgment: clearing up an abandoned cemetery, John, Gilly and Marlon’s personal demons come to the fore. Thornapple: poison enthusiast James becomes captivated by the ruthless Meribel on a visit to her wealthy aunt. Among the casts of these seven suspenseful adaptations are Jamie Glover, Mark Strong, Reece Shearsmith, Paul Rhys, Danny Sapani and Juliet Aubrey.
©2019 BBC Worldwide Ltd (P)2019 BBC Worldwide Ltd
Kissing the Gunner's Daughter
Summary
The massacre at Tancred House seems at first to be the work of a burglar, panicked into killing. But Chief Inspector Wexford believes there are links with the murder of a Kingsmarkham detective some ten months earlier.
©2009 Ruth Rendell (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Wolf to the Slaughter
Summary
Anita Margolis had vanished. There was no body, no crime, nothing more concrete than an anonymous letter and a name. A pattern soon emerged to the investigation. Not only had Anita been wealthy and flighty, she had been thoroughly immortal, too.
©1967 Ruth Rendell (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Best Man to Die
Summary
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.
©1987 Ruth Rendell (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Lake of Darkness
Summary
When he unexpectedly comes into a small fortune, he decides to use his newfound wealth to help out those in need. Finn also leads a quiet life, and comes into a little money of his own. Normally, their paths would never have crossed. But Martin’s ideas about who should benefit from his charitable impulses yield some unexpected results, and soon the good intentions of the one become fatally entangled with the mercenary nature of the other. In The Lake of Darkness, Ruth Rendell takes the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished to a startling, haunting conclusion.
©2011 Ruth Rendell (P)2011 Random House Audio Go
Some Lie and Some Die
Summary
For a while the music Festival in Kingsmarkham was going well. The sun shone, the groups played and everyone - except a few angry neighbours - seemed to enjoy themselves. Then the weather changed, and a young couple made a gruesome discovery. In spite of dire predictions, the rock festival in Kingsmarkham seemed to be going off without a hitch, that is, until a hideously disfigured body is discovered in the nearby quarry. Soon Wexford is investigating the links between a local girl gone bad and a charismatic singer who inspires an unwholesome devotion in his followers. Some Lie and Some Die is a truly captivating novel, in which Wexford's deductive powers come up against the aloof arrogance of stardom.
©1999 Ruth Rendell (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
An Unkindness of Ravens
Summary
When a local Romeo goes missing and two more young men are attacked, Chief Inspector Wexford begins to suspect murder. Rodney Williams was neither handsome nor wealthy, but he had an unerring eye for a pretty girl and when he disappeared and two other men were later attacked by a young woman, Chief Inspector Wexford couldn’t help wondering if there was a connection. If there wasn’t, where was Rodney Williams and why had he vanished? He had committed no crime, though he had certainly lied to his wife about both his job and his salary. Wexford was convinced Williams was dead….
©1994 Ruth Rendell (P)2010 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
The Face of Trespass
Summary
Two years ago, he had been a promising young novelist. Now he barely survives in a near derelict cottage with only his own obsessive thoughts for company. Two years of loving Drusilla - the rich, unstable girl with everything she needed, and a husband she wanted dead. The affair was over. But the long slide into violence had just begun....
©1974 Ruth Rendell (P)2014 Audible, Inc.