Here, from top international mystery writer Ruth Rendell, are nine new stories—one starring the astute Inspector Wexford—that turn a microscope on the tortuous pathways of the human mind and the merciless twists of fate. 

          Poetic justice overtakes a cocksure young thief from the public library… a dying man’s wife exacts a subtle revenge when he begs to see his long-lost mistress… A perpetual failure discovers his solitary talent-homicide… The accidental death of the queenly cat Melusina locks her killer into the strange life of an old lady and her feline hierarchy… A girl’s acquiescence in murder boomerangs again and again.