Ruth Rendell: A Spot of Folly (USA 2018)

From the Publisher:
A spine-tingling anthology by the New York Times-bestselling author and master of "psychological insight... and, not infrequently, teeth-chattering terror" (The New York Times).

These never-before-collected stories by Ruth Rendell -- the three-time Edgar Award-winning mistress of dark suspense and one of the most celebrated thriller writers of the twentieth century -- are "deliciously riveting, all the more so because Rendell's extraordinary ability to delve coolly and forensically into the dustiest nooks of the human psyche is amplified, not diminished, by the short story form... Often the reader is taken by the throat" (The Guardian).

In "The Thief," a chance encounter with a stranger triggers the most destructive impulses in a vindictive pathological liar. A family shares an unnamable feeling of dread and a necessary denial to make it through the night in "Trebuchet." In the title story, a caddish boor can't help but boast of his infidelities. A historic murder weighs heavy on the unholy reputation of a quaint local landmark in "The Haunting of Shawley Rectory." And in "Never Sleep in a Bed Facing a Mirror," Rendell delivers a masterstroke of gasp-inducing brevity.

Here are tales of mystery, madness, terrible crimes, and chilling perdition, all dispatched with a wit so knife-edged and deviousness, so impeccably cool that it's little wonder Joyce Carol Oates hails Ruth Rendell as "one of the finest practitioners of her craft."

Ruth Rendell: A Spot of Folly. Ten and a Quarter New Tales of Murder and Mayhem. Open Road Media, ISBN: 9781504054829 (November, 2018), 256 p., $17.99, eBook $10.99.

Ruth Rendell: A Spot of Folly (UK 2018)

From the Publisher:
New and uncollected tales of murder, mischief, magic and madness.
Ruth Rendell was an acknowledged master of psychological suspense: these are ten (and a quarter) of her most chillingly compelling short stories, collected here together for the first time. In these tales, a businessman boasts about cheating on his wife, only to find the tables turned. A beautiful country rectory reverberates to the echo of a historical murder. A compulsive liar acts on impulse, only to be lead inexorably to disaster. And a wealthy man finds there is more to his wife's kidnapping than meets the eye. Atmospheric, gripping and never predictable, this is Ruth Rendell at her inimitable best.

The stories are: Never Sleep in a Bed Facing a Mirror; A Spot of Folly; The Price of Joy; The Irony of Hate; Digby's Wives; The Haunting of Shawley Rectory; A Drop Too Much; The Thief; The Long Corridor of Time; In the Time of his Prosperity; and Trebuchet. Introduction from Sophie Hannah.

Ruth Rendell: A Spot of Folly. Ten and a Quarter New Tales of Murder and Mayhem. Profile Books, ISBN: 9781788160155 (October, 2018), 224 p., £8.99.

Ruth Rendell: A Spot of Folly (UK 2017)

From the Publisher:
New and uncollected tales of murder, mischief, magic and madness. Ruth Rendell was an acknowledged master of psychological suspense: these are ten (and a quarter) of her most chillingly compelling short stories, collected here together for the first time. In these tales, a businessman boasts about cheating on his wife, only to find the tables turned. A beautiful country rectory reverberates to the echo of a historical murder. A compulsive liar acts on impulse, only to be lead inexorably to disaster. And a wealthy man finds there is more to his wife's kidnapping than meets the eye. Atmospheric, gripping and never predictable, this is Ruth Rendell at her inimitable best.

The stories are: Never Sleep in a Bed Facing a Mirror; A Spot of Folly; The Price of Joy; The Irony of Hate; Digby's Wives; The Haunting of Shawley Rectory; A Drop Too Much; The Thief; The Long Corridor of Time; In the Time of his Prosperity; and Trebuchet. Introduction from Sophie Hannah.

Ruth Rendell: A Spot of Folly. Ten and a Quarter New Tales of Murder and Mayhem. Profile Books, ISBN: 9781788160148 (October, 2017), 212 p., £14.99, eBook £9.99.