Product Description

'Ruth Rendell's books are not only whodunits but whydunits, uncovering the motive roots of murder' Mail on Sunday

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68364 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-02
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Amazon.co.uk
The wait is over: here's a new Wexford novel. And Not in the Flesh is one of the sharpest, most astringent outings for Ruth Rendell's doughty copper in some time. Rendell's studies in dark psychology (which have at their centre characters who appear only in individual novels) are the most highly regarded among aficionados of her wok, but the unalloyed good feeling prompted by a fresh appearance for her long-term protagonist Inspector Wexford is something to be savoured, and we are once again in safe hands here.

A man taking his dog for a walk in a wooded area stumbles across a grim object -- a severed human hand. The body to which it belongs has been hidden from sight for years, as Wexford subsequently finds out. Of course, with the uncountable numbers of missing persons in police files, Wexford is well aware it will be an uphill struggle tracking down the identity of the body. Shortly after, in the basement of a disused cottage, another victim of violence is discovered, and Wexford and his reliable team find themselves attempting to discover connections between the murders.

Readers might wonder if the production of these utterly surefire Wexford books is an east task for Rendell (as opposed to the rigours of the grimmer psychological novels written under her own name, or the nom de plume Barbara Vine), but there's never a sense of the author on autopilot; this is professional, well-honed, engrossing stuff. --Barry Forshaw

Christopher Bray, New Statesman
`Rendell's genius with the whodunit form works to make everything doubly vital...She is one of the rare breed that makes you feel privileged to be around at the same time as they are'

Synopsis
Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth something less savoury - a human hand. The body, as Chief Inspector Wexford is informed later, has lain buried for ten years or so, wrapped in a purple cotton sheet. The post mortem cannot reveal the precise cause of death. The only clue is a crack in one of the dead man's ribs. Although it covers a relatively short period of time, the police computer stores a long list of missing persons. Men, women and children disappear at an alarming rate, something like 500 every day nationwide. So Wexford knows he is going to have a job on his hands to identify the corpse. And then, only about twenty yards away from the woodland burial site, in the cellar of a disused cottage, another body is found. The detection skills of Wexford, Burden and the other investigating officers of the Kingsmarkham Police Force are tested to the utmost to discover whether the murders are connected and to track down whoever is responsible.

Customer Reviews

An enjoyable if unexceptional outing for Inspector Wexford
Despite the fact that most of her admirers would doubtless choose one of her other guises (the non-Wexford Rendell books or the Barbara Vine novels) as representing her best work, the Inspector Wexford series remains Ruth Rendell's most popular output. There have certainly been some very good Wexford stories over the forty-odd years since his first appearance, but the conventions of writing a police procedural sometimes seem to stifle Ms Rendell's fervid imagination, which is given free reign in her other books. Obviously both the public and her publishers still want her to produce Wexford novels on a regular basis, but it seems as if her interest in her most famous creation has waned over the years, and in some of her recent Wexfords such as 'Babes In the Wood' it really felt she was writing out of duty and obligation rather than choice. However, the Chief Inspector's last case, 'End In Tears', was a marked improvement, and although 'Not In The Flesh' isn't its equal, I'd still rate it as one of the better Wexford novels of the past decade or so.

The central crime - the discovery of two bodies on a plot of land which have remained undiscovered for a decade - is intriguing, although perhaps the motive behind the crimes won't come as a shock; I had a rough idea of what lay behind the mystery long before the Chief Inspector himself did. Nevertheless, it manages to keep the reader engrossed until the end. As usual, there is a sub-plot which involves Wexford's family, and this time it concerns the horrifying practice of female circumcision. Ms Rendell handles the subject as thoughtfully and sensitively as long-time fans would expect, and the climax to this story strand is nail-biting. However, usually these side issues are cleverly woven in to the main plotline, and that just isn't the case here. As well-written and important as it is, it still feels tacked-on and completely at odds with the tone of the rest of the book.

My other problem with 'Not In The Flesh' is the tiresome carping about 'political correctness'. I really expected better of Ms. Rendell than this. The issue of over-zealous political correctness was covered by many other authors years ago when it might actually have been considered a newsworthy topic. These days the only people who use the phrase are lazy journalists who work for right-wing tabloids like the Mail and the Express - and even they are only pandering to their readers' prejudices. I have always admired Ruth Rendell's strong stand against all kinds of social injustice, and to find her wasting her words on a non-issue that only the most small-minded of Middle Englanders would consider worth mentioning is both disappointing and embarrassing.

Still, despite these misgivings, 'Not In The Flesh' remains a mostly enjoyable read and I'd still recommend it to anyone who liked previous Wexford novels. Nevertheless, I must confess to wondering whether it wouldn't be better for the Chief Inspector to finally hand in his warrant card for good, leaving his creator free to concentrate on her other, more interesting work.

A disappointment
There are already reviews saying what I also feel about this Wexford. To put it in a nutshell: cobbled-together, not convincing, not out from the heart. It hurts to sa this, you can be sure. I AM such a Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine fan.

Workmanlike but tired
A characteristic of the Wexford books has always been that they are very much of their time and focus on crimes touching the concerns of the day. This always gave Rendell an opportunity through the highly moral Wexford to examine the zeitgeist and ask some timely questions.

But this novel, competent though it is, could be set in any period. There's nothing about it that says 2007, except for the two tacked-on themes of female circumcision and political correctness. Rendell's social comment is usually made integral to the mystery, but this time they really don't fit.

It feels as though the Wexford series is getting tired now, and not just because Wexford has been on the brink of retirement for at least 20 years. This novel simply doesn't have the relevance that used to be characteristic of the series.