We are devastated by the loss of one of our best-loved authors, the award-winning crime writer Ruth Rendell. Ruth has been published by Hutchinson since 1964 and under her pen name Barbara Vine, she wrote 14 novels for Penguin. Ruth was very much part of our publishing family and a friend to many at Penguin Random House – we will miss her enormously. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family at this time.
Baroness Gail Rebuck, chair of Penguin Random House UK, says, “Ruth was much admired by the whole publishing industry for her brilliant body of work. An insightful and elegant observer of society, many of her award winning thrillers and psychological murder mysteries highlighted the causes she cared so deeply about. Ruth also became one of the first New Labour working peers continuing to effect change through the House of Lords most particularly on the issue of FGM.
Ruth was a great writer, a campaigner for social justice, a proud mother and grandmother, a generous and loyal friend and probably the best read person I have ever met. Her many close friends in publishing and the House of Lords will greatly miss her wonderful company and her truly unique contribution to our lives.”
Susan Sandon, MD of Cornerstone, says “Ruth was beloved as an author and a friend – to me, and to so many of us. Her writing and her company enriched all our lives. Erudite, wise and endlessly entertaining, she will be so greatly missed.”
Ruth Rendell was an exceptional crime writer, and will be remembered as a legend in her own life-time. Her ground-breaking debut novel, From Doon With Death, was first published in 1964 and introduced the reader to her enduring and popular detective, Inspector Reginald Wexford, who went on to feature in twenty-four of her subsequent novels. In 2013 she was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence in crime writing. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.
(Image credit, Jerry Bauer)
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I am very saddened by this. I particularly love her Barbara Vine books because they are so well-written, edgy and have a very strong sense of location