Author Ruth Rendell has passed away at the age of 85, according to a statement from her publisher Penguin Random House. Rendell had suffered a stroke in January of this year. The publishing house is “devastated by the loss of one of our best-loved authors,” the Times of India reports.

Rendell, who was born in Essex, had written over 60 novels in a career that spanned five decades, and is widely regarded for bringing social and psychological crime fiction into the mainstream.

Her best-known character was Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford, whose first book in the series ‘Doon with Death,’ was published in 1964, followed by two dozen more. The book was eventually made into a highly successful TV series starring George Baker.

Penguin Random House chair, Baroness Gail Rebuck, said Rendell, who also wrote under the nom de plume Barbara Vine, was admired for her “brilliant body of work and most of her acclaimed work highlighted the causes she cared so deeply about.”

Rendell, who was significantly enriched by her writing, was made a Labour life peer in 1997 and was a prolific philanthropist. In her political life, she fought vocally against female genital mutilation.

Many of Rendell’s novels have been translated into other languages – almost 20 at last count – and adapted for screen, and the author was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for excellence in crime writing, an honor also shared by American crime novelist Sara Paretsky, creator of the “V.I. Warshawski” female detective series.

Rendell wed journalist Don Rendell in 1953, from whom she divorced two decades years later but remarried within two years. She is survived by their son.

Her final novel, Dark Corners, is set to be published in October.