NOT IN THE FLESH: A Wexford Novel
Ruth Rendell
Crown
Mystery
ISBN: 9780307406811

Chief Inspector Wexford appears for the 21st time in Ruth Rendell’s latest police procedural. Still stationed in Kingsmarkham with the colleagues he has spent most of his career with, Wexford is a little older and wiser, noticeably more impatient and a bit crankier. Yet his experiences with the darker elements of human nature have made him more compassionate.

NOT IN THE FLESH begins as a good mystery. Tom Belbury is walking with his dog, in search of truffles, which he sells to add a bit of money to his pension. His Honey is a terrific truffle tracer, so when the old man sees the size of the one she excavated, he thinks he has a very valuable specimen. What the pet’s paw prowess has uncovered, however, is a human hand!

Wexford and his team are called to the scene and begin an investigation; not only do they need to find this man’s killer, they must try to identify the victim. The condition of his decomposed body suggests that he’s been dead and buried for about 11 years, and tatters of fabric found around his skeleton suggest that he was wrapped in a purple bed sheet. His grave was carved into what was supposed to be a trench to be used for a housing development that was never built.

Back at the station, Burden walks into Wexford’s office to report that the land where the dog walker found the body belongs to John Grimble, an irascible and unpleasant fellow whose taciturnity makes him difficult to deal with. He is bitter because when he wanted to develop four houses on his land, the zoning board refused him permission. The grudge he carries against his neighbors for campaigning against his house plans is as large as the chip on his shoulder. He and his wife are the sort of people who were old before they ever had a chance to be young. Wexford dislikes them on sight.

When the team is assembled back at the station, they get a PowerPoint presentation of the neighborhood and background information on its inhabitants from DS Goldsmith. Almost all of the residents are older or even elderly, and the part of Kingsmarkham where they live is known as the geriatric ward. The only person who ever built a reputation outside of Flagford is an elderly writer named Owen Tredown. He lives in a Victorian villa with his current wife, Maeve, and ex-wife Claudia. This particular group of oddballs keeps the gossips busy but seem to be harmless. Tredown has written a number of books based on Bible stories, but his masterpiece was a fantasy novel unlike any of the others in style or content. At the moment, that one is being made into a movie, and ironically Wexford’s daughter is playing the leading lady.

As things move along, another body is found buried under some wooden boards and debris, in the basement of the old cottage on Grimble’s property. This one seems to be dead about eight years, and nobody has a clue as to who he could possibly be. But this man was shot, so the cause of death is known.

Another neighbor, 84-year-old Mrs. McNeil, is a widow who is clearly terrified and hiding something. Damon Coleman, the only black man on the team, gets the dubious job of interviewing her. She has no choice but to let him into her house, despite insisting that she has nothing to say. Once she begins to express what she thinks of her former neighbors, she just goes on and on. But does she or any of her secrets relate to the two dead men?

While all of this is going on, a subplot not really related to this case is unfolding very quickly in Kingsmarkham’s Somali community: female circumcision. Although not a major theme, it is both shocking and fascinating. One of the Wexford daughters is a social worker who tries to keep track of the families with little girls in order to stop their mutilation. Two courageous women from the community tell Wexford that one three-year-old girl in particular is in dire jeopardy of becoming another victim of this cruel and barbaric ancient ritual.

NOT IN THE FLESH is populated by an abundance of characters: some loony, some serious, some kind and some evil, but all drawn clearly by their creator. They are a representative microcosm of humanity and reflect some of Rendell’s opinions in regard to certain prejudices that still filter through the British class system. She has always had a spot-on eye for detail and continues to shine a light into the darkest corners of the human heart.

Despite the plethora of bodies and unhelpful eccentrics who have a stock of red herrings, the Kingsmarkham constabulary solves their cases. Yet NOT IN THE FLESH is a flawed book. Aside from the disparate ages of the characters (if counted in real time), some of the prose is not as sharp as it could be. Also, while issues in the book are set in this century and Rendell has updated social changes, many of the characters are mired in a past that is long gone. Even Wexford often laments that he misses what he believes was a simpler world, especially when it comes to computers and other technology. Sometimes the plot meanders off its straight and narrow path, but never in such a way as to spoil anything for the reader.

Rendell’s fans immediately will recognize NOT IN THE FLESH as a Ruth Rendell novel, and new readers will not be disappointed either. And since Rendell is known for writing approximately one book a year, the next one is surely on its way.

    --- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

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