The Ruth Rendell Mysteries
Specials
TV-14
From cold, rock-strewn moors to comfortable suburban estates, award-winning writer Ruth Rendell explores the dark fissures between friends and family members that motivate murder.
Where to Watch Specials
10 Episodes
- The Veiled OneE2
The Veiled OneGwen Robson, a middle-aged housewife who proves to have been a blackmailer, is found garotted in the car park of a suburban shopping mall. Wexford is no sooner on the case than a car bomb goes off and all but kills him, putting him in hospital. This leaves Mike Burden with the task of solving the case, but he goes off on the wrong scent. Wexford's analysis is better, though. - Put on by CunningE3
Put on by CunningAn old man, Sir Mañuel Camarque, dies when he loses his foothold on a dark winter night, slips into a lake and drowns under the ice. It looks like an open-and-shut case. However...Camarque, who was a world-famous flautist, planned to marry Dinah Sternhold, a woman young enough to be his grand-daughter. The banns of the marriage had just been read for the third time in church and Sir Mañuel was nervous. Dinah tells Wexford that Camarque had suspicions that his daughter Natalie (who would inherit his fortune) was not his daughter at all but an impostor. Wexford investigates, and develops a theory of an intruder who pushed the old man into the lake. - Talking to Strange MenE5
Talking to Strange MenJohn Creevey has recently separated from his wife Jennifer and is still obsessed with her and Peter Mullin, the new man in her life. Many years ago his sister Cherry had been murdered and her fiancé, Mark Simms, now John's best friend, had been the prime suspect. When the police reopen the case and Simms is again under suspicion, John begins to doubt his friend's innocence, until Mark tells him of sordid details about Cherry's promiscuous past - and her relationship with Peter Mullin. When John discovers a series of coded messages hidden beneath a railway bridge, he throws himself into solving them, as a way of taking his mind off Jennifer. He believes that he has uncovered the communications of a gang of terrorists, not realising that it is just schoolboys at rival public sc - The Lake of DarknessE8
The Lake of Darknesstuffy young accountant Martin Urban wins a fortune on the football pools, with the help of his friend Tim Sage, and plans to give it away. But then he meets and falls for Francesca, who, alas, is promised to another... Martin is drawn another way, which may even lead to murder. - Harm DoneE10
Harm DoneYoung Lizzie Crowne goes missing on the Muriel Campden housing estate, and a hunt for her body is under way when she turns up again. Another teenage girl vanishes on the same estate. Then, just after an elderly paedophile is released from prison, the three-year-old daughter of Fay and Stephen Devenish disappears, leaving them distraught. With the police apparently impotent, residents decide to take the law into their own hands.
