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Executive Times |
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2008 Book Reviews |
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Not in
the Flesh by Ruth Rendell |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Desire Chief
Inspector Wexford returns in the latest Ruth Rendell mystery novel, Not in
the Flesh. Long-buried bodies, secrets and a side story on the Somali
community in Kingsmarkham and their practice of female genital mutilation all
combine to form a mystery novel that will bring pleasure to most readers.
Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 2, pp. 5-7: The
thing that had come out of the pit lay exposed for them
to see, a bunch of bones that looked more than anything like broomsticks, a
skull to which scraps of decomposed tissue still adhered, all wrapped in
purple cotton. They had been
digging for two hours, an operation watched by Jim Belbury and
his dog. "Man
or woman?" Chief Inspector Wexford asked. "Hard
to say." The pathologist was a young woman who looked like a
fifteen-year-old model, thin, tall, pale, and otherworldly. "I'll tell
you when I've taken
a closer look." "How
long has it been there?" Carina
Laxton eyed Wexford and his sergeant, DS Hannah Goldsmith, who had asked the
question. "And how long have you two been in the force? Isn't it about
time you knew I can't give you an immediate answer when a cadaver's obviously
been buried for years?" "Okay,
but is it months or decades?" "Maybe
one decade. What I can tell you is you're wasting your time taking all these
measurements and photographs as if someone put it there last week." "Maybe Mr. Belbury can
help us there," said Wexford. He had decided not to mention the fact
that Jim Belbury was trespassing, had probably been trespassing for years.
"Did your dog ever dig here before?" "Not on this spot,
no," said Jim. "Over there where there's more bigger trees. Can I
ask you if you reckon it's what you call foul play?" Wexford was tempted to say,
well, no, you can't, but he relented. "Someone buried him or her, so
you have to—" he began but Hannah interrupted him. "Law-abiding people don't
bury bodies they find lying about, you know," she said sharply.
"Perhaps you should be on your way, Mr. Belbury. Thank you, you've been
very helpful." But Jim wasn't to be dismissed
so easily. Finding Wexford sympathetic and everyone else—Hannah, the
scene-of-crime officer, the photographers, the pathologist, and various
policemen—of no account, he began giving the chief inspector details of all
the houses and their occupants in the vicinity. "That's Mr. Tredown's
place next door and down there's the Hunters and the Pickfords. Over the
other side that's Mr. Borodin. I've lived in Flagford all my life. There's
nothing I don't know." "Then you can tell me who
owns this land." Wexford extended his arm and waved his hand.
"Must be at least an acre." His politically correct
sergeant murmured something about hectares being a more appropriate
measurement "in the present day," but no one took much notice of
her. "An acre and a half,"
said Jim with a glare at Hannah. "We don't have no hectares round here.
Them belongs in the Common Market." Like many people of his age, Jim
still referred in this way to the European Union. "Who owns it?
Well, Mr. Grimble, innit? This here is Old Grimble's Field." Though he might possibly be
compounding a felony, seeing that the subterranean fungi in the bag properly
belonged to this Grimble, Wexford thanked Jim and offered him a lift home in
a police car. 'And
my dog?" said Jim. "And
your dog." His
offer gratefully accepted, he and Hannah moved away, heading for the road
where police vehicles were parked along the pavement. It became, within a
short distance, Flagford High Street, a somewhat too picturesque village center
where stood the thirteenth-century church, a post office and general store, a
shop that sold mosaic
tabletops, another purveying lime-flower honey and mulberry conserve, and a
number of flint-walled cottages, one thatched and another with its own bell tower. Wexford,
in the car, said to Hannah that, for all the times he had
been to Flagford, he couldn't remember noticing that piece of land before. "I
don't think I've ever been here before, guy," said Hannah. He
had grown accustomed to her calling him that and supposed she had originally
got it off the television. The Bill, probably.
Not that he liked it, while admitting it was current usage, but
the trouble was all his officers had learned it from
her and now no one kept to the old "sir." Burden would know who
owned that land. He had a relative living in Flagford, his first wife's
cousin, Wexford thought it
was. "There's
not much to be done," Hannah was saying, "until we know how long that
body's been there." "Let's
hope Carina will know by later today." "Meanwhile
I could find out more about this Grimble and if he owns the old house on it." Not in
the Flesh is a story about desire and its power to direct human behavior.
Steve
Hopkins, July 18, 2008 |
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Go to Executive Times Archives |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the August 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Not in the Flesh.htm For Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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