Not in the Flesh - Softcover

Rendell, Ruth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0091920604 ISBN 13: 9780091920609

Publisher: Hutchinson, 2007

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 can not 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.

About this title

Review

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

Review

"Rendell's genius with the whodunnit form works to make everything doubly vital. Without being remotely didactic, she is the pre-eminent thematic novelist of her day... Jane Austen would have approved of Rendell's cliché-dissecting wit... It's impossible to imagine her writing anything devoid of import. She is one of the rare breed that make you feel privileged to be around at the same time as they are. She doles out death so that we might feel more alive." (New Statesman)

"If Ruth Rendell were not slotted into the category of writer of mystery novels, she would have won the Booker long ago" (Gerald Kaufman)

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

"Gripping and memorable." (Sunday Times)

"Probably the greatest living crime writer in the world" (Ian Rankin)

Edition details

• Publisher: Hutchinson
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0091920604
• ISBN 13: 9780091920609
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272