The Ruth Rendell Mysteries

Sixteen-year-old Elvira's mother is dead. Elvira is sad, of course, but not so sad as her younger sister Spinny. Spinny is afraid their father, Luke, will be heartbroken, but Elvira knows better -- after all, Luke has her to take her mother's place. But then Luke brings home a pretty young woman and introduces her as his fiancee, and Elvira decides that she will stop at nothing to stop her father's marriage . . .

Part two of two

A middle-aged man returns to his home town and meets the woman he was in love with as a teenager thirty years before. Liz and Mark are soon an item again - but the past comes back to haunt them.

At first, this mystery seems to be a missing person case: Wexford's doctor asks for help in finding his daughter, Melanie Akande, a recent college graduate who disappeared after going to her local unemployment office to find a job. The Akandes are an immigrant family from Nigeria, living in a rural area where only a handful of black people live. The woman who handled Melanie's case at the unemployment office, also young and black, is found murdered a few days later. Could the disappearance and the murder be connected? Wexford begins to face up to subtly racist attitudes.

Wexford visits the victim of another attempted murder in hospital, and notices a pink Volkswagen Beetle in the car park. Later, another attempt is made on her life. The car is traced to the Epson family, who are away, having left their children with a childminder - who turns out to be Melanie Akande. Wexford closes in on the link - Annette Bystock and Zack Nelson.

Susan Townsend is a young woman who goes to see her reclusive next-door neighbour and finds him hacked to death. When another body is found on the neighbour's property, Susan gets mixed up in a tale of mayhem and murder, with the killer adding her to his list of future victims.

Part two of two. Susan Townsend finds herself in danger as details of the double killing begin to emerge.

The action begins in the year 1954, when a woman's body is found in the fen-land of Norfolk, and a murder investigation gets under way. In the end, Detective Inspectors Masters and Moore find themselves dealing with the deaths of five women, all apparently by the hand of the same murderer. A young man becomes their principal suspect - but is he really a serial killer?

Part two of two. Eddie Brannel's protests of innocence urge Masters to go against orders, and as a consequence he learns the true identity of the killer.