Acclaimed crime writer Ruth Rendell has passed away. She was 85.
According to her publisher Penguin Random House, the author, who had suffered a stroke in January, died in London, and they were "devastated by the loss of one of our best-loved authors," the BBC reported.
Born in Essex, Rendell had penned over 60 novels in a career that spanned 50 years, and holds the credit for taking social and psychological crime fiction to the next level.
Her best-known creation was Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford, whose first book in the series 'Doon with Death,' was published in 1964, followed by over 20 more, and it was even made into a highly successful TV series starring George Baker.
Penguin Random House chair, Baroness Gail Rebuck, said Rendell, who also under the pen-name Barbara Vine, was admired for her "brilliant body of work and most of her acclaimed work highlighted the causes she cared so deeply about."
A lot of her novels have also been translated into more than 20 languages and adapted for screen, and she was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for excellence in crime writing.
Rendell had married a journalist named Don Rendell in 1953, from whom she divorced 22 years later but remarried within two years. She is survived by their son.
Her final novel, Dark Corners, is due to be published in October.
