A Guilty Thing Surprised

Synopsis

The discovery of Elizabeth Nightingale’s broken body in the woods near her home could not have come as a bigger shock. Called in to investigate, Chief Inspector Wexford quickly determines that the Nightingales were considered the perfect couple – wealthy, attractive and without an enemy in the world.

However, someone must have been alone with Elizabeth that night in the woods. Someone who hated - or perhaps loved - her enough to beat her to death.

The case seems straightforward. But Wexford soon learns that beneath the placid surface of the Nightingales’ lives lie undercurrents and secrets no one ever suspected.

Author Biography

Ruth Rendell was born Ruth Grasemann in South Woodford, London, to an English father and a Swedish mother. She began her writing career with at least six novels, none of which she tried to publish, though she did offer some short stories, all of which were rejected. It was not until 1964, when she was thirty-three, that Hutchinson took her first Inspector Wexford novel, From Doon With Death, Harm Done, was the eighteenth and the Inspector Wexford novel, Babes in the Wood was published in November 2002, taking the tally to 19. Hutchinson have published all the Ruth Rendell novels, 38 in total as well as 7 collections of short stories, 2 non fiction titless, Ruth Rendell’s Suffolk and Ruth Rendell’s Anthology of the Murderous Mind and one novella.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Essex. She lives in London. She is a member of the Suffolk wildlife Trust, as well as being a firm socialist, Christian and vegetarian. Her books have been translated into 25 languages. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 was made a Life Peer. Her husband died in 1999.