Simisola: A Chief Inspector Wexford Mystery
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You might think we were dealing with Prime Suspect IV. In racist, high-unemployment Britain, a young, middle-class black woman goes missing, and the last person she seems to have spoken to--an unemployment officer--is found murdered in bed. Unfortunately, the struggle between social commentary and whodunit is so equal--think of two wrestlers, each unable to throw the other--that one soon tires of the sport. What went wrong? Rendell is the finest of the finest, an author who, like le Carre{{‚}}, often soars above her genre as if using it only to ground her craft. Is the problem the too-conventional nature of her Wexford series, or the too-conventional targets of her social criticism? In fact, the chief target of the author's criticism is an English law that permits wealthy immigrants to bring into the country servants who are part of their household but who are not legitimate immigrants in their own right--that is, who must stay with their "masters" if they are not to be deported. That these servants are often treated like slaves has not, so far, persuaded the Conservative government to change the law, and this is the source of Chief Inspector Wexford's (and Rendell's) quiet disgust. "We're all racists," the gentle Wexford says in the early pages, and the novel goes on to prove him right. But all this, of course, is a contrivance, and the story suffers under the burden; it has little force, momentum, or focus. True, Rendell firing on only three cylinders is more impressive than many firing on all four, but this is still a disappointment. (Reviewed June 1 & 15, 1995)0517700735Stuart Whitwell

In her 17th mystery starring Chief Inspector Wexford (after Kissing the Gunner's Daughter), Rendell casts a decidedly baleful eye on changes in the Sussex country town of Kingsmarkham and its people-the appearance of slums, the rise of decidedly fascistic attitudes and growing unemployment and hopelessness among the young. Against this dour backdrop, Raymond Akande, a thriving black doctor, comes to Wexford with a problem: his 22-year-old daughter has disappeared. Wexford, as patient and friend (a somewhat uneasy friend, because a ``decent'' Englishman of his generation cannot quite get used to blacks), feels bound to help. He uncovers a dark train of events: a girl who was apparently the last to see Melanie Akande alive is strangled; the body of another young black woman is found buried in the woods; and a sturdy Nigerian crossing guard is pushed down the stairs in her apartment block. Meanwhile, a flashy Arab lady running for the local council seems to be attempting to ensnare Wexford, and there is a mystery concerning one of her Filipino servants. The events are put together so methodically and believably, while the drawing of character and setting is so exact, that the book seems at times like a contemporary Middlemarch with a murder mystery at the heart of it. The solution is truly astonishing yet as logical as the rest of this splendid, passionately fair-minded and deeply disturbing novel-in which Rendell surpasses even herself. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Having taken Chief Inspector Reg Wexford (Kissing the Gunner's Daughter, 1992, etc.) from China to California, Rendell now plunges him into the most exotic setting of all: the Thatcherite underside of his own village of Kingsmarkham. When Wexford's Nigerian physician, Dr. Raymond Akande, reports his unemployed daughter Melanie missing, her trail ends just outside the local Benefits Office, where Annette Bystock had given her information and taken down her particulars. Wexford's staunch sidekick Mike Burden, making routine inquiries, is shocked to discover, not Melanie's body, but Annette's. Even a second corpse, unveiled to the Akandes in a harrowing scene, isn't Melanie's. By this time, Rendell has expanded the mystery of Melanie's whereaboutscourtesy of trenchant episodes introducing a hapless burglar, a pushy local politician, an unbelievably obtuse adulterer and the wife he deserves, and an anti-rape rallyto a vast and labyrinthine exploration of racism, wife- beating, unemployment, and the ugliest kinds of domestic abuse. Though the patient, endless windup is a letdown, Wexford's 16th case succeeds, as very few detective stories do, in creating a world that rings true from the opening question to the final deadly blow.

The latest Chief Inspector Wexford mystery, in which a small town's racism turns deadly. (Sept.) Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information.