The Babes In The Wood

Oct 7, 2024 1:31 PM

Author:Ruth Rendell

The nineteenth book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford.

'A woman phoned to say she and her husband went to Paris for the weekend, leaving their children with a - well, teen-sitter, I suppose, got back last night to find the lot gone and naturally she assumes they've all drowned.'

There hadn't been anything like this kind of rain in living memory. The River Brede had burst its banks, and not a single house in the valley had escaped flooding. Even where Wexford lives, higher up in Kingsmarkham, the waters had nearly reached the mulberry tree in his once immaculate garden. The Subaqua Task Force could find no trace of Giles and Sophie Dade, let alone the woman who was keeping them company, Joanna Troy. But Mrs Dade is convinced her children are dead.

As he embarks upon this mysterious investigation, Wexford is forced to question many of his core assumptions about society, even about his own family...

Reviews

Chief Inspector Wexford is Rendell's most enduring and best creation

—— Daily Telegraph

As usual, Rendell mirrors aspects of the case in the leading characters' personal lives and her cleverly understated writing bathes them and their actions in a glow of reality that sets her writing above that of her many imitators.

—— Time Out

As always with Ruth Rendell's intricately thought-out novels, nothing is as simple as it seems.

—— Sunday Express

Superb plotting and psychological insight make this another Rendell gripper

—— Woman & Home

Utterly absorbing

—— Sunday Telegraph

Ruth Rendell is not only the finest crime novelist there is, but one of the finest novelists writing in the English language

—— Gerald Kaufman, Scotsman

Brilliantly empathetic. Believe the hype: a brilliant, heart-warming book

—— Scotsman

In telling a painful story in the voice of a 15-year-old boy with Asperger's, Haddon broadens ordinary minds and helps to understand how they work, too.

—— Daily Telegraph

Mark Haddon's portrayal of an emotionally dissociated mind is a superb achievement. He is a wise and bleakly funny writer with rare gifts of empathy

—— Ian McEwan

I have never read anything quite like Mark Haddon's funny and agonizingly honest book, or encountered a narrator more vivid and memorable. I advise you to buy two copies; you won't want to lend yours out

—— Arthur Golden, author of 'Memoirs of a Geisha'

Original, moving and entertaining for adults as well as for older children

—— Julia Donaldson , Daily Express

A deservedly acclaimed read.

—— Time Out London

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