LONDON: Best-selling British crime writer Ruth Rendell, who wrote over 60 books in a career spanning five decades, died on Saturday at the age of 85.

Rendell — who also wrote under the pseudonym Barbara Vine — suffered a stroke in January and had been in a critical condition in hospital ever since.

She was described as “the last grande dame of the police thriller” after the death of her friend and fellow British crimewriting legend P. D. James last year.

Rendell was best known for thrillers that delved into the criminal mind as well as the long-running television series based on her work, “The Ruth Rendell Mysteries”.

Gail Rebuck, chair of her publisher, Penguin Random House, described her as “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”. Her best-known fictional creation, the sensitive Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford, featured in her first novel “From Doon to Death” (1964) and was a constant character in her work until she retired him in “The Vault” in 2011.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2015

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