My on-going love affair with the writing of Ruth Rendell is now on End in Tears, an Inspector Wexford mystery.

I only discovered Rendell about 8 months ago, though how she was off my radar I hardly know. I’ve been voraciously reading her ever since and am fascinated by her take on the mystery of average evil… the people next door who we only think we know.

I’m not prone to reading reviews, whether of books, movies, or anything else. I’d rather formulate my own experiences, find my own gems and diamonds in the rough. That said, these words from her peers and reviewers are dead on (pun intended):

Ruth Rendell is, unequivocally, the most brilliant mystery novelist of our time. Her stories are a lesson in a human nature as capable of the most exotic love as it is of the cruelest murder. She does not avert her gaze. Once again, she magnificently triumphs in a style that is uniquely hers and mesmerising. Patricia Cornwell

Ruth Rendell is the ultimate anatomist of the human psyche, probing behind public facades to reveal private torment and distorted visions that change the way we view the world around us. Val McDermid

The best mystery writer in the English speaking world. Time

If you’ve never read Rendell (or her nom de plume Barbara Vine) pick her up, you’ll not regret it.