Title: Wolf to the Slaughter (Inspector Wexford #3)
Author: Ruth Rendell
Category: Mystery – Police Procedural
Published: 1967
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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Anita Margolis has vanished. Dark and exquisite, Anita’s character is as mysterious as her disappearance. But with no body and no apparent crime, seemingly there’s nothing to be investigated.
Until Wexford receives an anonymous note claiming “a girl called Ann” was killed the very night Anita disappeared. But how seriously should they take the note?
With only one questionable lead to follow, Wexford and Inspector Burden are compelled to make enquiries. They soon discover Anita is wealthy, flighty, and thoroughly immoral. Burden has a very clear idea of what has happened to her. But Wexford has his own suspicions.
There’s no body – and I mean for the majority of the book which is unusual for a murder mystery. But clearly someone has been killed, nothing else could leave that large a blood stain on the carpet of a rented room.
We’ve got two things going on in the books – first the investigation which winds in and around the small town. Wexford is his usual calm, insightful self. Burden is, as always, a little more judgemental and likely to jump to conclusions. As they navigate through the clues, they come in contact with a variety of people, including several who are well-known to them due to prior encounters. It becomes hard to tell who are the victims and who are the criminals, which I think is one of the strong points of the story. It all comes together in the end, but in the midst of it it’s difficult to see where the plot’s going. The focus is less on Wexford than on the case though. He doesn’t have the central role that he does in some of the others in the series.
The more human side of the story involves a relatively new officer, Drayton, who is attracted to/ in love with a young woman who becomes entwined in the investigation. She obviously knows something, but just how much is up for debate. His obsession with her fogs his judgement and he just can’t leave her alone even when Wexford suggests it.
The ending caught me off-guard. I didn’t see the twist coming, even though I certainly should have. There were enough clues, but I was looking at things the wrong way.
This is a bit of a spoiler, but I’ve been complaining about the women characters in mysteries lately. Once again, this is definitely a male-dominated story- even the one woman who has a bit of backbone in the end is desperate for a man to help her get out of the situation she’s locked herself into.
Chief Inspector Wexford Series
- From Doon with Death
- A New Lease of Death (apa: Sins of the Fathers)
- Wolf to the Slaughter
- The Best Man To Die
- A Guilty Thing Surprised
- No More Dying Then
- Murder Being Once Done
- Some Lie and Some Die
- Shake Hands Forever
- A Sleeping Life
- Put on by Cunning (apa: Death Notes)
- The Speaker of Mandarin
- An Unkindness of Ravens
- The Veiled One
- Kissing the Gunner’s Daughter
- Simisola
- Road Rage
- Harm Done
- The Babes in the Wood
- End in Tears
- Not in the Flesh
- The Monster in the Box
- The Vault
Short Stories
- Means of Evil and Other Stories
Challenge: WAYR
About Ruth Rendell
Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE (February 17, 1930 – May 2, 2015) was an English author of thrillers and psychological murder mysteries.
Rendell’s best-known creation, Chief Inspector Wexford, was the hero of many popular police stories, some of them successfully adapted for TV. But Rendell also generated a separate brand of crime fiction that deeply explored the psychological background of criminals and their victims, many of them mentally afflicted or otherwise socially isolated. This theme was developed further in a third series of novels, written under her pseudonym Barbara Vine.
It does seem they can’t write a strong woman
I don’t usually notice it, just lately every book has me complaining about the women. The next mystery on my list has a woman sleuth though, so hopefully she’ll hold her own.
That’s too bad about not finding strong female characters in mysteries lately. I don’t read much in the genre, so I really can’t recommend any.
They’re out there, it’s just been a bad string.
Try Minette Walter’s books. Plenty of strong female characters there; I’d recommend The Shape Of Snakes, The Ice House and The Scold’s Bridle.
I think it’s kind of fun to have a mystery without a body. This sounds good.
It was really good. It’s one of those where you think the mystery is one thing, but it turns out to be something else altogether.
I’m curious about the ending now.