A Fatal Inversion is a 1987 novel by Ruth Rendell, written under the pseudonym Barbara Vine.[1] The novel won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger in that year and, in 1987, was also shortlisted for the Dagger of Daggers, a special award to select the best Gold Dagger winner of the award's 50-year history.
Plot summary
In the process of burying a beloved dog in the animal cemetery of Wyvis Hall, a beautiful Suffolk country house, the owner unearths the skeletons of a dead woman and baby. The horrific discovery challenges the buried memories and guilt of a small group of young people who, 10 years earlier, spent the broiling summer of 1976 in a self-indulgently irresponsible idyll at Wyvis Hall, unexpectedly inherited by one of their number. Slowly the facts emerge and the past catches up with them. But which woman is dead? And whose child?
Adaptations
The BBC adapted the novel for Radio 4 in 1991, and in three episodes for television in 1992 as the first novel to be adapted for The Barbara Vine Mysteries. The series starred Jeremy Northam and Douglas Hodge.[2]
References
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| 1955–1959 |
- The Little Walls by Winston Graham (1955)
- The Second Man by Edward Grierson (1956)
- The Colour of Murder by Julian Symons (1957)
- Someone from the Past by Margot Bennett (1958)
- Passage of Arms by Eric Ambler (1959)
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| 1960–1969 | |
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| 1970–1979 | |
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| 1980–1989 | |
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| 1990–1999 | |
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| 2000–2009 | |
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| 2010–2019 |
- Blacklands by Belinda Bauer (2010)
- Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (2011)
- The Rage by Gene Kerrigan (2012)
- Dead Lions by Mick Herron (2013)
- This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash (2014)
- Life or Death by Michael Robotham (2015)
- Dodgers by Bill Beverly (2016)
- The Dry by Jane Harper (2017)
- The Liar by Steve Cavanagh (2018)
- The Puppet Show by M. W. Craven (2019)
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| 2020–present |
- Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham (2020)
- We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker (2021)
- Sunset Swing by Ray Celestin (2022)
- The Kingdoms of Savannah by George Dawes Green (2023)
- Tell Me What I Am by Una Mannion (2024)
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| Inspector Wexford novels |
- From Doon with Death
- A New Lease of Death
- Wolf to the Slaughter
- The Best Man to Die
- A Guilty Thing Surprised
- No More Dying Then
- Murder Being Once Done
- Some Lie and Some Die
- Shake Hands Forever
- A Sleeping Life
- Put on By Cunning
- The Speaker of Mandarin
- An Unkindness of Ravens
- The Veiled One
- Kissing the Gunner's Daughter
- Simisola
- Road Rage
- Harm Done
- The Babes in the Wood
- End in Tears
- Not in the Flesh
- The Monster in the Box
- The Vault
- No Man's Nightingale
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| Stand-alone novels |
- To Fear a Painted Devil
- Vanity Dies Hard
- The Secret House of Death
- One Across, Two Down
- The Face of Trespass
- A Demon in My View
- A Judgement in Stone
- Make Death Love Me
- The Lake of Darkness
- Master of the Moor
- The Killing Doll
- The Tree of Hands
- Live Flesh
- Heartstones
- Talking to Strange Men
- The Bridesmaid
- Going Wrong
- The Crocodile Bird
- The Keys to the Street
- A Sight for Sore Eyes
- Adam and Eve and Pinch Me
- The Rottweiler
- Thirteen Steps Down
- The Thief
- The Water's Lovely
- Portobello
- Tigerlily's Orchids
- The Saint Zita Society
- The Girl Next Door
- Dark Corners
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| As Barbara Vine |
- A Dark-Adapted Eye
- The House of Stairs
- Gallowglass
- King Solomon's Carpet
- Asta's Book
- No Night is Too Long
- The Brimstone Wedding
- The Chimney Sweeper's Boy
- Grasshopper
- The Blood Doctor
- The Minotaur
- The Birthday Present
- The Child's Child
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| Short story collections |
- The Fallen Curtain
- Means of Evil
- The Fever Tree
- The New Girlfriend
- The Copper Peacock
- Blood Lines
- Piranha to Scurfy
- A Spot of Folly
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| TV series |
- The Ruth Rendell Mysteries
- The Barbara Vine Mysteries
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