The Killing Doll

The winter before he was sixteen, amateur magician Pup made a Faustian pact and sold his soul to the devil. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to get in exchange. Pup's older sister, Dolly, is manically obsessed with her birthmark, believing it is responsible for her status as a social outcast. She becomes pathologically transfixed by Pup's dabbling in magic, desperate to believe he has occult powers that can cure her disfigurement, improve their lives, and kill their stepmother. As Dolly's obsession grows, a young mentally disturbed Irishman lurks just around the corner, inseparable from his sharpened set of knives... In this intense and deeply disturbing novel, Ruth Rendell explores a haunted world of obsession, delusions and murderous fantasy, with dazzling virtuosity.

Lincoln Rhyme is back! The brilliant criminologist returns with his partner and paramour Amelia Sachs, in a blistering bestseller that tests forensic detective work in a brave new world. When Special Agent Kathryn Dance—a brilliant interrogator and kinesics expert with the California Bureau of Investigation—is sent to question the convicted killer Daniel “Son of Manson” Pell as a suspect in a newly unearthed crime, she feels both trepidation and electrifying intrigue. Pell is serving a life sentence for the brutal murders of the wealthy Croyton family in Carmel years earlier—a crime mirroring those perpetrated by Charles Manson in the 1960s. But Pell and his cult members were sloppy: Not only were they apprehended, they even left behind a survivor—the youngest of the Croyton daughters, who, because she was in bed hidden by her toys that terrible night, was dubbed the Sleeping Doll. But the girl never spoke about that night, nor did the crime's mastermind. Indeed, Pell has long been both reticent and unrepentant about the crime. And so with the murderer transported from the Capitola superprison to an interrogation room in the Monterey County Courthouse, Dance sees an opportunity to pry a confession from him for the recent murder—and to learn more about the depraved mind of this career criminal who considers himself a master of control, a dark Svengali, forcing people to do what they otherwise would never conceive of doing. In an electrifying psychological jousting match, Dance calls up all her skills as an interrogator and kinesics—body language—expert to get to the truth behind Daniel Pell. But when Dance's plan goes terribly wrong and Pell escapes, leaving behind a trail of dead and injured, she finds herself in charge of her first-ever manhunt. But far from simply fleeing, Pell turns on his pursuers—and other innocents—for reasons Dance and her colleagues can't discern. As the idyllic Monterey Peninsula is paralyzed by the elusive killer, Dance turns to the past to find the truth about what Daniel Pell is really up to. She tracks down the now teenage Sleeping Doll to learn what really happened that night, and she arranges a reunion of three women who were in his cult at the time of the killings. The lies of the past and the evasions of the present boil up under the relentless probing of Kathryn Dance, but will the truth about Daniel Pell emerge in time to stop him from killing again?

When fifteen-year-old Elizabeth finds an antique doll in a garage sale, she thinks it would be a good gift for her dad who's about to ship out for Afghanistan. She doesn't realize that the doll might be a missing (and very valuable) historical artifact. With the help of Evan, the cute guy who works at the local used bookstore, Elizabeth discovers that the doll is THE soldier doll: the inspiration for a famous World War I poem. Elizabeth becomes the newest link in an epic history of more than a century of war, her story ingeniously interwoven with a cast of characters who we follow from World War I to Nazi Germany in the 1930s, a Czech concentration camp during World War II, Vietnam in 1970, and the aftermath of September 11th.

"Wood's usual Lady Luckless is poor little rich girl Eve Klein, whose millions can't buy her relief from her other inheritance: the clairvoyant powers that have recently frightened off her husband, Sam. Hoping to confront him, Eve drives from her Connecticut estate to Sam's new house in Raven Lake, New York, where she's instantly felled by a vision of a woman mutilated and dying - the handiwork of local sociopath Adam Fuller, M.D., whose eyes ("empty ... dead ... glassy. Like a doll's eyes"') give away his utter inability to feel for others, the product of a buried childhood trauma: Fuller kills in the barren hope of feeling pity for his victims. Eve's call to the cops snares homicide legend Dave Latovsky, who takes her to see psychiatrist Terrence Bunner, who happens to have Fuller as a patient. When, at a party, Bunner lets on to Fuller that Eve - whom he won't identify - saw the killer in her vision, the mad M.D. tracks a gory path to the psychic, torturing and shooting Bunner, then a local newsman and his wife, to get Eve's name and address. Meanwhile, at Bunner's funeral, Latovsky notes Fuller's Ken-doll eyes and fingers him for the killer but can't nab him before Fuller snatches Eve, hauling her to his childhood home. There, Eve flashes on the child abuse that turned Fuller into a maniac ... A lurid, loose-jointed tale whose frantic action and emotionalism nearly obscure the familiarity (Koontz, King, etc.) of Wood's themes."--Kirkus

Detectives Byrne and Balzano return to the streets of Philadelphia to put an end to a macabre succession of murdered children. A quiet Philadelphia suburb. A woman cycles past a train depot with her young daughter. There she finds a murdered girl posed on a newly painted bench. Beside her is a formal invitation to a tea dance in a week's time. Seven days later, two more young victims are discovered in an abandoned house, posed on painted swings. At the scene is an identical invitation. This time, though, there is something extra waiting for Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano: a delicate porcelain doll. It's a message. And a threat. With the killers at large, Detectives Byrne and Balzano have just seven more days to find the link between the murders before another innocent child is snatched from the streets.

From multi-million copy and SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author Ruth Rendell, this is a strange, seductive and suspenseful psychological thriller with a cunning final twist that will get right under the skin. Perfect for fans of PD James, Ann Cleeves and Donna Leon. 'She is incapable of writing a sentence that is not invested with mystery and fear... I was totally transfixed. If you read it, you will not sleep well. And it is a marvellous piece of work' -- Today 'Difficult to put down... she begins with the everyday, the ordinary and transmutes it into an almost Gothic tale of suspense and quiet terror' -- Daily Express 'Probably the greatest living crime writer in the world' -- Ian Rankin 'Ruth Rendell's mesmerising capacity to shock, chill and disturb is unmatched.'-- The Times 'Pure genius' -- ***** Reader review 'Gripping throughout' -- ***** Reader review 'Possibly her best' -- ***** Reader review 'A twisted, strange, compelling piece of brilliance' -- ***** Reader review **************************************************************** Safe houses and secret message drops, double crosses and defections - it sounds like the stuff of sophisticated espionage, but the agents are only schoolboys engaged in harmless play, unaware of the danger awaiting them if their messages were intercepted... John Creevey doesn't know the truth behind the mysterious codes he is reading. To him, the messages he decodes with painstaking care are the communications of dangerous and evil men. As he comes face to face with the reality of his beloved wife Jennifer's defection, he begins to see a way to get back at the man she left him for, a man with a disturbing connection to the schoolboys... And soon the schoolboys are playing more than just a game.

There is a new casino being built in Dodge. Since it is connected to an old Indian burial ground, there are mixed feelings about if it should be built or not. There are strange stories that have been told about Dodge, and people are worried. One person in particular is Sue. She doesn't want her husband, Jim, to work for Paul at the construction site. Paul just wants to do his job and get the casino built. However, something or someone is killing off his workers. Which has Sue worried even more. The authorities have shut down the construction site until this monster is caught. How can they catch a monster that is a toy statue one minute, and a larger than life iron demon the next, who seems to have trouble staying in one city? Will this monster ever be caught? Will the casino ever be built? Only time will tell, and according to Paul's boss, that time is running out.