what are Ruth Rendell books like?

[beautifuldays]

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

not forgetting Christianna "Nurse Matilda/Nanny McPhee" Brand's wartime masterpiece, Green for Danger. Made into a fantastic film by Sidney Gilliatt too

Ecalpemos????

PD James also disturbingly right-wing, I think.

Ruth Rendell is very readable but after a while I started profoundly disagreeing with her view of humanity (which is not just bleak but wierd).
For cosy Midsomer Murder type stuff, try Patricia Wentworth - I;m not sure how much is still in print but they turn up in charity shops etc. For characters you will really get involved with and a wonderful ambivalence about the supernatural, try Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins books. Val McDermid is very good if you can rid your mind of the image of Robson Farking Green doing his usual impression of a man whose underpants are one size too small... Mo Hayder is brilliant but really really sick.
If you like Americans, Sue Grafton is lots of fun, Sara Paretsky great though the earlier books are a bit too po-faced 80s feminist...

It's the commune in A Fatal Inversion
I know PD James is right-wing bonkers and always has been but I think I find her books interesting for that reason. A bit like Ayn Rand...

And she does a good serial killer, of course.

I am rather partial to that long DC Banks series. And very partial indeed to the divine Harlan Coben. And even have time for Dalziel and Pascoe.

Oh god have just realised I've spent today outing myself on MN as Country Music Fan and Thriller Addict.

Why are Dalziel and Pascoe SO much better on the page than on TV? I can't watch the dramatisations, they're so dire.
The books I really loathe are the Inspector Lynley "mysteries" (biggest one being HTF this woman got published in the UK)

Country music?!

iam always posting this but louise welsh is really fab.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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...

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

That was good and appealed to my inner nerd

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.

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.

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.

Also, what about Nikki French's novels?

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"

Ngaio Marsh is very very good and all