Ruth (Barbara) Rendell Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on Ruth (Barbara) Rendell

In the world of mystery and detective fiction, Ruth Rendell is considered by most critics as one of the leading, if not the leading, practitioners of the genre. Often hailed as the "Queen of Crime" or "the First Lady of Mystery," she has also been called the "new Agatha Christie," a label that, given the vast difference in her work from Christie's, annoys Rendell. In an interview in Maclean's (6 November 1989) with Diane Turbide, Rendell complained, "It's all so much rubbish, these tags. My books are nothing at all like Agatha Christie's, and the Queen of Crime--I mean, really." Despite any inaccuracy or the extravagant flash of such tags, they promiscuously flourish because of Rendell's unparalleled publishing success and eminence in the field of mystery and detective fiction. For more than thirty-five years this prolific writer, with more than forty-five novels and seven short-story collections to her credit, has enthralled readers and critics alike with her ability to make out of what might, in a less skillful writer's hands, fall into the formulaic, something always suspenseful and viscerally compelling.

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