Reviews

Chief Inspector Wexford is having a busy month. First two young women are taken from a bus stop; then a pedophile is released from jail, triggering violence from members of the community. During the course of these events a colleague is killed. Then a child is stolen from her crib in the middle of the night, and later her father is found murdered. On top of this Wexford must deal with the disintegration of his daughter's marriage and her new job in a shelter for victims of domestic violence, a job that lands her right in the middle of several of the cases he is working on. How does the inspector deal with these cases as well as the crises that are arising from his own family? Unlike most crime mysteries, this seems to be more of a slice of life focusing on a variety of tales and their aftermaths. Though the novel, read by Christopher Ravenscroft, starts out promisingly, it gets bogged down, and the stories come to boring, contrived endings. Since Rendell is a popular writer, libraries will want to have this title to satisfy demand. Otherwise, not a necessary purchase.ÄDanna Bell-Russel, Library of Congress Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

In her latest Inspector Wexford mystery (following Road Rage), the prolific Rendell shows that, like Wexford, she too is a master of indirection. Like a stout, aging British Columbo, Wexford hides his intuition and keen powers of observation behind a rumpled, grandfatherly facade. Three of the cases that he unravels in this satisfyingly complex work have to do with the abuse of women or children. The crimes range from the ridiculous (a petulant university girl and a mentally challenged girl from a low-income housing project are each kidnapped to do housework and returned for ineptitude) to the monstrous (Wexford and his men must protect a child molester who was released from prison while a rich man tortures his wife in the comfort of his spacious home). Rendell is too realistic a writer to link her crimes together in a sensational way. Instead, each offense galvanizes a slew of colorful characters of all classes who live in the suburban community of Kingsmarkham. Wexford's daughter Sylvia, a strident volunteer for a battered women's shelter, fills in her father on the signs of abuse and abusers, and it is a measure of Rendell's subtle skill that she manages to address a social blight without ever losing track of her plot or flattening her characterizations. Thanks to Rendell's steadfast devotion to what is real over what is mere theory, what comes through in her 47th book is the unique human mystery at the heart of a crime. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.