Ruth Rendell is at it again in "The Lake of Darkness."… As in so many of her books, this one concerns middle-class Londoners faced with unusual situations, coping as well as they can….

Many of Miss Rendell's books have an O. Henry ending, with an unexpected twist. But where O. Henry was always light-hearted, Miss Rendell is grim, and "The Lake of Darkness" ends with a combination of irony and horror. Her writing style is muted, purposely so, and that makes the extraordinary situations all the more biting. She has worked out a special field for herself, and she continues to pursue it with ingenuity.

Newgate Callendar, in a review of "The Lake of Darkness," in The New York Times Book Review (copyright © 1980 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), November 9, 1980, p. 26.