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Original poster

what are Ruth Rendell books like?

58 replies

beautifuldays · 28/03/2008 21:03

ok i have read and re-read all of my agatha christies, and i know whodunnit in every book. i need to find a new author!
i love murder mystery but prefer the agatha christie stiff upper lip detective in tweed type, rather than modern blood and guts. what's ruth rendell like? are her books similar to agatha christie? trying to work out whether it's worth buying some or not and whether i would like them.

am definately more of a midsummer murders than a rebus girl iykwim

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squilly · 31/03/2008 17:26

This guy is quite good and has been compared to Agatha Christie in the past, if only for his old fashioned style of writing/characters

www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/04/19/boakunin.xml

[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article551700.ece ]]

StealthPolarBear · 31/03/2008 10:00

i always think i'll like rr books from the description but can never get into them
tried

PD James
Val McDermid
Elizabeth George?

InLoveWithSweenyTodd · 31/03/2008 09:44

I like Ruth Rendell and my favourite is "A judgement in stone". Also good are "The face of trespass" and "The bridesmaid".
I discovered her Barbara Vine's books fairly recently and have only read 2: "A Dark-Adapted Eye" and "King Solomon's carpet", and I liked both of them a lot.

Original poster
beautifuldays · 29/03/2008 22:39

thanks, the wentworth, sayers and ngaio marsh all look good too. will get some out of the library on monday to try them out.

thanks everyone

OP posts:
nkf · 29/03/2008 19:39

From Doon with Death is her first and it's still a goody.
Put on By Cunning is good. So is Shake Hands for Ever.
Simisola and Road Rage are both Rendell doing "issues" and are weak because of it.

motherinferior · 29/03/2008 17:24
TotalChaos · 29/03/2008 17:01

beautifuldays - the book people selection is a mix of old and new wexfords (from doon with death is the very first one).

i've read a couple of M.C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin books - quite acerbic for a "cozy` but entertaining in small doses.

Don't think anyone on the thread has suggested the Campion series by Margery Allingham. Also the post WWI series by Charles Todd is good.

Oh and the Mamur Zapt series set in pre WWI Cairo is good but not too gory if that sort of thing is up your street (by Michael Pearce)

Original poster
beautifuldays · 29/03/2008 16:53

thanks everyone.
will go and investigate (excuse pun ) ruth rendell's early stuff, dorothy sayers and patricia wentworh. the ones i was thinking of getting were these are these earlier or later do you know?

also has anyone read any of M.C Beaton's stuff? is it any good or is it terribly naff?

thanks for all the suggestions

OP posts:
suzywong · 29/03/2008 14:10

Ngaio Marsh is very very good and all

suzywong · 29/03/2008 14:09

I LOVE nicki French!
Only Embossed Gold title books I ever read, they are utterly un-put-downable. YUM!

Best Ruth R I ever read was "The Crocodile Bird"

Fullmoonfiend · 29/03/2008 14:07

Also, what about Nikki French's novels?

Fullmoonfiend · 29/03/2008 14:07

If you like,I could have a look and send you some if I haven't already got rid? I had hundreds of them as I adored Ruth Rendall books. I particularly love her writing as Barbara Vine - really good pyschological thrillers.
Have to say, think Rendall's later offerings really went off the boil. Terribly formulaic and filled with irritating nods to modern lifeprove she was 'au courant' IYKWIM.

fishie · 29/03/2008 13:49

solomon's carpet i think mb.

marina there's a reivew in today's guardian of a new series with josephine tey investigating. sorry can't remember name and don't have paper, but published by faber.

nkf · 29/03/2008 12:44

Ruth Rendell would be a good choice after Agatha Christie. The early ones are best. She;s also good in her Barbara Vine incarnation. Dorothy L Sayers is a period piece. I like her. I'm also quite keen on Sue Grafton. Again, the early ones are best.

Blandmum · 29/03/2008 12:32

Which is the Rendell/vine one about the london underground?

That was good and appealed to my inner nerd

marina · 28/03/2008 22:50

I was honestly stunned at how bad the books are choosy. As you say, it is the constant grating wrongness of the English detail and speech
LOL cali, can you imagine what it must be like to tip up to the Royal London to have your cervix tweaked and have seen Hank in concert ...and then realise...

choosyfloosy · 28/03/2008 22:46

LOL madamez re robson's undercrackers

and marina re Inspector Lynley's Hour of Toss. Not that I've watched any of it, the trailers are enough. TBH very sad, read Elizabeth George's book Write Away about how to write - excellent book, funny, down to earth, enjoyable. Thought, this woman is great! she must write great books! i lasted about 2 pages into one of hers, with two cockernee characters spouting loads of unreal dialogue and practically wearing Pearly King costumes, after which rubbish a child was suddenly dead in a grisly manner for no apparent reason. That was the end of that.

i don't have the intellect for pd james. by the time she's introduced 300 characters, all of whom are Oxford dons or related to them, I've lost interest. Also never recovered from The Children of Men, in which the character born in 1969 (same year as me) appears to have been born in, oooh, about 1925 or so.

Califrau · 28/03/2008 22:41

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marina · 28/03/2008 22:40

It's the gynae/C & W thing that intrigues me califrau

edam · 28/03/2008 22:39

eek. And another eek for good measure! I never had MI down as a fan of Stand By Your Man.

Califrau · 28/03/2008 22:38

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fishie · 28/03/2008 22:36

marina i read her last "what happened before he shot her" or whatever it was called. oh the ghastly tripe and so totally depressing. nobody else must ever read this book.

marina · 28/03/2008 22:33
fishie · 28/03/2008 22:27

iam always posting this but louise welsh is really fab.

not for you though beautiful days, i think patricia wentworth would be super.

edam · 28/03/2008 22:25

Country music?!

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