Not in the Flesh: A Wexford Novel (Chief Inspector Wexford Mysteries)
by Ruth Rendell
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ruth RendellEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-10
ISBN: 0307406814
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Crown
Book Reviews of Not in the Flesh: A Wexford Novel (Chief Inspector Wexford Mysteries)
Book Review: "Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise..."
Summary: 4 Stars
All seems to be tranquil in the Flagford fields just outside of Kingsmarkham deep in the heart of Sussex when Jim Belbury, a local farmer while walking his dog uncovers a skeleton buried in a trench, most likely placed there eleven years ago when the site was being quarried for a new housing development, which was ultimately refused by the county's planning commission.
The body is nearly impossible to identify, it's body tissue has long since dissipated, flesh, skin, veins, tendons all gone, along with any clothing and the only clues are that it has been wrapped in a crumbling purple sheet and there appeared to be a crack in one of the ribs - indeed there seems to be no other signs of violence of any kind.
This discovery proves to be an impossible mystery for Chief Inspector Wexford, Detective Inspector Burdon and the staff of the Kingsmarkham Police. Determined to solve the mystery, almost once their investigation turns to the odd cast of unconventional characters that inhabit the surrounding area, particularly that of the truculent, John Grimble, an unpleasant man who had once been trying to get planning permission to build houses on the land that his father owned.
Apparently Grimble had decided to put in the main drainage, before permission was granted, but once denied, Grimble had his friend Bill Runge fill in the trench a few days after the body was perhaps unceremoniously dumped. But Grimble and Runge can do little to shed light on how the body actually got into the trench and who he may have been.
When Wexford and his colleagues discover that quite a large number of men have remained missing in the greater mid-Sussex area, two men in particular appear still unaccounted for and have become possible candidates for what has been found in Grimble's field. Common sense dictates that someone in the surrounding estates may hold a clue to what went on eleven years, ago, especially the ageing Irene McNeil who tells Wexford that Grimble may have had a lodger in Grimble's cottage and that over the years, she went in and out of the house. When later it is revealed that her husband Ron may have shot a man who was trespassing in the house, soon a portrait develops of two self appointed vigilantes who had somehow convinced themselves that it was their job to police the surrounding district, including Grimble's property.
But it is the eccentric inhabitants of Athelston House who Wexford finds most intriguing and that of the famous author Owen Tredown and his two wives Maeve Tredown and Claudia Ricardo, one his current wife and one his ex. Tredown has made a fairly lucrative career writing novels about biblical characters, but now at deaths door and riddled liver cancer, he remains shut up in his ivory tower, writing for all he's worth to keep his wives in comfort, his nose apparently kept to the grindstone by Maeve and Claudia while also protected by them as well.
As the case unfolds Wexford increasingly find it difficult to actually talk Own Tredown with Maeve and Claudia's brash personas and frequent bursts of tacky and sl*ttish rudeness turning everyone against them including that of the Kingsmarkham police. Still, Wexford's inner conviction refuses to go away, that somehow Tredown is being protected, hidden by Claudia and Maeve for reasons that have something to do with this body in the trench.
In typical fashion, Rendell steadily unloads her multi-faceted plot, introducing a number of peripheral characters and a series of complicated red herrings that revolve around the theme of missing persons. When another body is discovered under the logs in the filthy cellar of Grimble`s house, with the hair, black and coarse and exposed, only then does the case take on a new and much more profound complexity that hinges on a once white t-shirt with a black scorpion printed on it, two gold wedding rings chased with leaves with FOREVER inscribed inside, and a Sunday Times article detailing a book soon to be published about the day a daughter's father suddenly went away, vanishing off the face of the earth.
Rendell also weaves in a less successful subplot involving the Somali community in Kingsmarkam and one family's secret plan to perform female circumcision on their three-year-old daughter. The incident adds yet another troubling scenario for the busy Wexford. In the end, a number of surprises alter both cases, the investigation of the two dead bodies almost taking on the appearance of a "death head smile." Although certainly not Rendell's best, there are still many enjoyable moments as her ageing hero, through his amazing powers of deduction, gradually stitches together the threads and connections in this compelling novel of revenge and literary jealousy. Mike Leonard July 08.
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