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A review by billymac1962
From Doon With Death by Ruth Rendell
3.0
I've been listening to the Currently Reading podcast quite a bit these days.
One of the hosts, Meredith, is a huge Louise Penny fan, as I was for the first eight novels of her series. I hit my limit after nine, but this is the longest I have ever kept with a series. When I was into it, it was so great coming back to Three Pines.
In one of these podcasts, Meredith had recommended the Inspector Wexford series to Louise Penny fans. Same type of deal; a small village and developing characters throughout the series. And, great mysteries to boot.
One of my favourite books is A Sight for Sore Eyes, a standalone by Ruth Rendell, a mystery where she masterfully took a few storylines that ultimately converged. It's been almost twenty years since I read it, and there has always been a niggling in the back of my mind to get back to her eventually. So here we are.
This is, of course, the first in the series, her debut novel written in 1964. In her afterword, written in 2013, she says that she wanted to write a detective novel just to see if she could do it, but then the popularity of it drove her to write another, then another, and realizing that if she was going to live with these characters, she was going to have to develop them going forward.
So, this one doesn't really have much in the way of backstory of our Inspector, but it is quite a good police procedural. I must confess that as I reached the 40% marker or so, I was worried that this might get a bit dull and disuade me from the series. However, I am very pleased to say that at the 50% mark this changed and I became nicely engaged in the story.
This was a quick read, only about 200 pages, which I appreciated. Overall, I'm feeling three stars for this and am looking forward to reading the next one and hopefully many more after that. When Rendell is on her game, she is one of the best, so I'm glad to have this series on my to-read list.
One of the hosts, Meredith, is a huge Louise Penny fan, as I was for the first eight novels of her series. I hit my limit after nine, but this is the longest I have ever kept with a series. When I was into it, it was so great coming back to Three Pines.
In one of these podcasts, Meredith had recommended the Inspector Wexford series to Louise Penny fans. Same type of deal; a small village and developing characters throughout the series. And, great mysteries to boot.
One of my favourite books is A Sight for Sore Eyes, a standalone by Ruth Rendell, a mystery where she masterfully took a few storylines that ultimately converged. It's been almost twenty years since I read it, and there has always been a niggling in the back of my mind to get back to her eventually. So here we are.
This is, of course, the first in the series, her debut novel written in 1964. In her afterword, written in 2013, she says that she wanted to write a detective novel just to see if she could do it, but then the popularity of it drove her to write another, then another, and realizing that if she was going to live with these characters, she was going to have to develop them going forward.
So, this one doesn't really have much in the way of backstory of our Inspector, but it is quite a good police procedural. I must confess that as I reached the 40% marker or so, I was worried that this might get a bit dull and disuade me from the series. However, I am very pleased to say that at the 50% mark this changed and I became nicely engaged in the story.
This was a quick read, only about 200 pages, which I appreciated. Overall, I'm feeling three stars for this and am looking forward to reading the next one and hopefully many more after that. When Rendell is on her game, she is one of the best, so I'm glad to have this series on my to-read list.