Ruth Rendell, who has died at the age of 85, spoke to Nicholas Clee for newbooks magazine in 2008...
There is both unconventionality and orderliness in her life and career. In much of her writing, Rendell has pushed against the rules of the mystery genre in which she works; but she has also written 21 detective novels, for the most part in the classic tradition, starring Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford. Starting with her debut From Doon with Death (1964) and continuing with Not in the Flesh, the Wexfords present crime as a mystery to be solved in the final chapters. She characterises Not in the Flesh as a "typical" Wexford: "It has a puzzle and a solution, and the solution more or less brings order out of chaos - which doesn't apply of course in my other books."
