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jdtangney's review against another edition
4.0
The great Baroness succumbed to the Christie maneuver — using pages of exposition at the end to bring to light facts, hitherto unknown to the reader, that tie off the story with a near bow. I’ve always found Agatha Christie’s routine use of this cop-out as quite unsatisfying. It’s a pity Ms Rendell stooped to this cheap trick. This novel is nevertheless a delight — especially as read by the inimitable Nigel Anthony.
hoserlauren's review against another edition
1.0
I tried to get in to this one, I really did. Ignoring the first chapter, which I'm sure foreshadowed where the story was going by showing cult-like worshiping, we're placed in soggy England. The main inspector's home is being threatened by flooding and he regularly keeps in his wife, who has no personality whatsoever. The police are contacted when a couple returns from a weekend in Paris to find their two children and babysitter missing. The mother is convinced they drowned despite the flood waters not being higher than 4 feet. You would think things progress from here but they don't. A chapter interviewing the parents, a chapter interviewing the parents of the babysitter, a chapter searching the missing babysitter's house and nothing happens. Nothing. So I decided to give up.
ianl1963's review against another edition
3.0
Audiobook, read by Nigel Anthony; excellent.
Think it is more the reader than the author, switch off brain and await the bunny out of the hat.
Think it is more the reader than the author, switch off brain and await the bunny out of the hat.
basicbookb's review against another edition
2.0
British grandmother recommends British author who writes a pedantic British crime novel. Not my cuppa tea.
margaret21's review against another edition
4.0
Ruth Rendell is always good value. But this is even better value than most. Life isn't good anywhere in Inspector Wexford's community as the book begins: the area is dangerously flooded and the rain continues. Two teenagers and their 'babysitter' disappear when their parents are away for the weekend. Did they drown in the floods? Then the babysitter's dead body is found - some 3 months after the event. The landowner on whose property the decomposed crpse is found had actaully sen it significantly earlier. He's in trouble, his marriage is in trouble, the teenagers' parents marriage is in trouble. Wexford's daughter's marriage is also in trouble - unrelated to the deaths it's true.
Rendell plays with all these ravelled threads with her usual skill. The daily dramas of family and workplace life are interwoven with the increasingly complex threads of the plot, and right until the end, no resolution seems possible. But this is a murder mystery, so in the end the perpetrator is found. The identity may surprise you.
Rendell plays with all these ravelled threads with her usual skill. The daily dramas of family and workplace life are interwoven with the increasingly complex threads of the plot, and right until the end, no resolution seems possible. But this is a murder mystery, so in the end the perpetrator is found. The identity may surprise you.
pjgal22's review against another edition
4.0
Another solid installment in the Chief Inspector Wexford series. Ruth Rendell is a must-read for me. Her stories are always engaging and well-written.
maureenr's review against another edition
4.0
the mystery is fine, but what I really liked is the character of Inspector Wexford, and the humor Rendell shows in both the dialogue and the descriptions of the characters.