A Guilty Thing Surprised

She took a peaceful walk in the woods—and found death waiting. . . . “The best mystery writer anywhere in the English-speaking world.”—The Boston Globe Elizabeth and Quentin Nightingale. A happy couple who lived quite graciously at Myfleet Manor in the gentle English countryside. Elizabeth Nightingale found peace and tranquility on her nightly walks through the rich, dense forests surrounding Myfleet Manor. But the peace she treasured was shattered one night when she found death waiting in the woods. Chief Inspector Wexford and his colleague Inspector Burden find a most unsavory case on their hands—and must use all their wit and wisdom to solve it . . . “Undoubtedly one of the best writers of English mysteries and chiller-killer plots.”—Los Angeles Times “You cannot afford to miss Ruth Rendell.”—The New York Times Book Review “For readers who have almost given up mysteries . . . Rendell may be just the woman to get them started again.”—Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

She took a peaceful walk in the woods—and found death waiting. . . . “The best mystery writer anywhere in the English-speaking world.”—The Boston Globe Elizabeth and Quentin Nightingale. A happy couple who lived quite graciously at Myfleet Manor in the gentle English countryside. Elizabeth Nightingale found peace and tranquility on her nightly walks through the rich, dense forests surrounding Myfleet Manor. But the peace she treasured was shattered one night when she found death waiting in the woods. Chief Inspector Wexford and his colleague Inspector Burden find a most unsavory case on their hands—and must use all their wit and wisdom to solve it . . . “Undoubtedly one of the best writers of English mysteries and chiller-killer plots.”—Los Angeles Times “You cannot afford to miss Ruth Rendell.”—The New York Times Book Review “For readers who have almost given up mysteries . . . Rendell may be just the woman to get them started again.”—Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

Will you be able to get to the bottom of the mystery multi-million copy and SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author Ruth Rendell presents in No More Dying Then? Fans of PD James, Ann Cleeves and Donna Leon will devour this with its compelling drama and intricately woven web of murder, mystery, clues and crimes... 'Ruth Rendell has quite simply transformed the genre of crime writing' -- Sunday Times 'Rendell never fails to come up trumps, and her millions of admirers will eagerly consume this offering as they have all the others.' -- The Irish Times 'Didn't want to stop reading it!' -- ***** Reader review 'Excellent book - had me gripped from the start' -- ***** Reader review 'Great writing as always by the mistress of crime novels' -- ***** Reader review 'A must read'-- ***** Reader review ****************************************************************************************** On a stormy February afternoon, little Stella Rivers disappears - never to be seen again. There are no clues, no demands and no traces. And there is nowhere for Wexford and his team to look. All that remains is the cold fear and awful dread that touches everyone in Kingsmarkham. Just months later, another child vanishes - five-year-old John Lawrence. Wexford and Inspector Burden are launched into another investigation and, all too quickly, they discover chilling similarities to the Stella Rivers case. Then the letters begin. The horrifying, evil, threatening letters of a madman. And suddenly Wexford is fighting against time to find the missing boy, before he meets the same fate as poor Stella...

National Book Critics Circle Award, Biographers International Organization Plutarch Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist New York Times Book Review, Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian Best Books of 2016 Thomas De Quincey was an obsessive. He was obsessed with Wordsworth and Coleridge, whose Lyrical Ballads provided the script to his life, and by the idea of sudden death. Running away from school to pursue the two poets, De Quincey insinuated himself into their world. Basing his sensibility on Wordsworth’s and his character on Coleridge’s, he forged a triangle of unusual psychological complexity. Aged twenty-four, De Quincey replaced Wordsworth as the tenant of Dove Cottage, the poet’s former residence in Grasmere. In this idyllic spot he followed the reports of the notorious Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811, when two families, including a baby, were butchered in their own homes. In his opium-soaked imagination the murderer became a poet while the poet became a murderer. Embedded in On Murder as One of the Fine Arts, De Quincey’s brilliant series of essays, Frances Wilson finds the startling story of his relationships with Wordsworth and Coleridge. Opium was the making of De Quincey, allowing him to dissolve self-conflict, eliminate self-recrimination, and divest himself of guilt. Opium also allowed him to write, and under the pseudonym “The Opium-Eater” De Quincey emerged as the strangest and most original journalist of his age. His influence has been considerable. Poe became his double; Dostoevsky went into exile with Confessions of an English Opium-Eater in his pocket; and Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, Alfred Hitchcock, and Vladimir Nabokov were all De Quincey devotees. There have been other biographies of Thomas De Quincey, but Guilty Thing is the first to be animated by the spirit of De Quincey himself. Following the growth of his obsessions from seed to full flowering and tracing the ways they intertwined, Frances Wilson finds the master key to De Quincey’s vast Piranesian mind. Unraveling a tale of hero worship and revenge, Guilty Thing brings the last of the Romantics roaring back to life and firmly establishes Wilson as one of our foremost contemporary biographers.