Lonely, amoral and self-absorbed villains people the psychological thrillers of British writer Ruth Rendell. These troubled people are very much alive in this re-release of two 1977 volumes, the better to lock in a new generation of readers.

A Judgement in Stone

By Ruth Rendell

Vintage. 1999. $11

A Demon in My View

By Ruth Rendell

Vintage. 1999. $11

By Florence Gilkeson

Senior Writer

Lonely, amoral and self-absorbed villains people the psychological thrillers of British writer Ruth Rendell. These troubled people are very much alive in this re-release of two 1977 volumes, the better to lock in a new generation of readers.

Today Rendell is more likely to write her psychological works under the name Barbara Vine and her Inspector Wexford novels as Ruth Rendell. The styles differ, but the quality is the same.

In “A Judgement in Stone” (a reminder that the spelling of “judgement” with the “e” is the British spelling — you’ll lose the spelling bee if you add that “e” in this country) a drab housekeeper, Eunice Parchman, is employed by the Coverdales of Lowfield Hall.

Eunice knows her place, keeps to the background and is impeccable when it comes to carrying out her duties. Not a speck of dust is to be found in the Coverdale mansion once she arrives.

Now the Coverdales are a combined family. George Coverdale, a middle-aged professional man whose first wife died, has married a divorcee, Jacqueline, whose first husband was drowning himself in alcohol. He has three children, two of whom are grown, the third a teen. Jacqueline brings to the marriage one teenage son.

And they are happy, not perfect, mind you, but happy and typical of the 1970s. Melinda, the Coverdale child still at home, is alive with social awareness and an egalitarian spirit not traditional in her family. Giles Mont, Jacqueline’s son, is about the same age and is trying to “find” himself.

The family tries to befriend Eunice. She has a room of her own, with bath and a television set. Although family members try to reach out to her, Eunice keeps her distance, shunning familiarity of any sort.

For, you see, she has a secret, a shameful secret that she shares with no one. Eunice is illiterate. She can neither read nor write, and it haunts her, day in and day out. So utterly absorbed in her illiteracy is Eunice that she sees and hears every remark, every kindly rejoinder, every smile or laugh as a snide reference to her condition.

Eunice sees books (and Lowfield Hall overflows with them) as “small flattish boxes…packed with mystery and threat.”

Lowfield Hall becomes the scene of a massacre before Eunice will accept her personal stigma as punishment for her crimes. And although the Coverdales may have been elitist — watching grand opera on the telly at the time of the massacre, they are well meaning, good people at heart.

“A Demon in My View” introduces another peculiar loner, this time a man who is literate but enjoys a strange fetish: Arthur Johnson likes to visit the cellar of his rooming house and strangle an abandoned manikin stored away with the detritus of other families’ lifetimes.

Into his life comes another man named Johnson and with the same first initial. Anthony Johnson is working on his thesis examining psychopathic behavior.

Arthur Johnson, as with Eunice Parchman, works a steady job, keeps regular hours and does not bother anyone.

But of course life has placed Arthur in the company of people whose lives and outlook differ from his. Anthony Johnson sees opportunities to help other people and reaches out. Arthur sees only himself and reaches nowhere except inward.

An innocent act by Anthony eats into Arthur’s being, and the loner seeks revenge. To tell more would ruin this intriguing plot, which ends on a deliciously ironic note.

Ruth Rendell has much perfected her craft in the more than 30 years since she penned these works, but they are still readable and chilling in the reality of unloving people introduced into the lives of ordinary people not unlike ourselves.