In a desire to make myself more productive, I swore to review every book I had bought once I had read them. First up is Not in the Flesh, A Wexford Novel.
Wexford, if you don't know, is Kingsmarkham's Chief Inspector. He's old and intelligent and fat and quite aware of all his shortcomings. The series sort of shows how he changes slowly from an almost unbearable know-it-all prig to a wiser, more sympathetic character (and by slowly I mean this series is more than 40 years old and only now is Wexford making an effort in drinking wine rather than drowning in beer for his health).
Dalgliesh when he was young (according to me)
That's the thing about these super long running series' like Dalgliesh and Wexford; things of course change, his own personality evolves, and the main character feels the encroachment of modernity, the cultural influences of the immigrants, the introduction of kids-these-days as characters. Sometimes I don't like it because I'm the type who likes things to stay the same forever but it's necessary to the relevancy of the book.
NITF opens up with an unidentified skeleton in a field owned by a really irritating and bitter old guy. Wexford and a new character, Hannah, investigate. Even the pathologist is new! *sob* Half the book goes on while Wexford, Hannah and Burden (his trusty and sharply dressed sidekick) try to figure out who exactly the body is.
And then another body shows up in the abandoned bungalow on the same field. Basically everyone's crying 'Potter's Field' and then Kay Scarpetta is brought in. Kidding. They get a lead from a newspaper that has printed excerpts from a book about a girl whose father went missing at about the same time one of the skeletons was thought to have popped its clogs.
The rest of it is mostly them interviewing the neighbours that abutt the field, and that is usually the best part. The characters are always so interesting, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes sympathetic. It's so much fun just reading crime because the people involved become studies of character - depending on the writer la of course.
There's also a side story about the Somali community that has been growing in Kingsmarkham, and Wexford's daughter's involvement in awareness about female circumcision that is apparently still practiced by the community that had come to the UK.
Rendell's books are usually sympathetic, with sympathetic and/or pathetic characters. As Barbara Vine, her books can be a bit too depressing for me to enjoy, but in Wexford you have a character that, though involved, will come out in the end untouched by the human miseries and horribleness that abound as the story unfolds.
