by Ruth Rendell
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Product Description
A new Chief Inspector Wexford mystery from the author who Time magazine has called “the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world.”
When the truffle-hunting dog starts to dig furiously, his master’s first reaction is delight at the size of the clump the dog has unearthed: at the going rate, this one truffle might be worth several hundred pounds. Then the dirt falls away to reveal not a precious mushroom but the bones and tendons of what is clearly a human hand.
In Not in the Flesh, Chief Inspector Wexford tries to piece together events that took place eleven years earlier, a time when someone was secretly interred in a secluded patch of English countryside. Now Wexford and his team will need to interrogate everyone who lives nearby to see if they can turn up a match for the dead man among the eighty-five people in this part of England who have disappeared over the past decade. Then, when a second body is discovered nearby, Wexford experiences a feeling that’s become a rarity for the veteran policeman: surprise.
As Wexford painstakingly moves to resolve these multiple mysteries, long-buried secrets are brought to daylight, and Ruth Rendell once again proves why she has been hailed as our greatest living mystery writer.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 vintage, 2008-11-14
It had been some time since I'd read a Ruth Rendell or a Barbara Vine (she is so prolific I get mixed up - which have I read yet and which haven't I)? I thoroughly enjoyed this book and plan to go back now and catch up with a few books I know I've missed.
This book was all the more enjoyable to me because the much-ballyhooed book I'd brought with me to read on vacation in the Netherlands was a huge disappointment...overwritten and boring. So I was forced to scour the English-language shelves of the local stores where I found Not in the Flesh. So glad I did. May Ms. Rendell continue to entertain us with her writing for a few more decades.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
In the Flesh , 2008-11-13
You can't go wrong with a Ruth Rendell novel. The Inspector Wexford stories are first rate.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent, 2008-10-20
What a shame that another reviewer did not bother to read Rendell's account of female genital mutilation as written in this book. It is well-known in the UK that Baroness Rendell is a long term campaigner against the practice. In this book she introduces the subject in an enormously sensitive way and is able to get across not only the horror of it, but also the reasons many people from Africa believe in doing it to their daughters. It's worth reading the book for the mystery, as described by others, but don't gloss over the tiny sub-plot with FGM in it. You might learn something.
That said, the book is excellent, as are all Rendell's books. Excellent writing, good characterisation, and a good plot that is all tied together in the end. I particularly liked the introduction of the woman writing a book about her long-missing father, and the gifts she had inherited from him became clear as the story went on. Thank you Baroness Rendell for publicising FGM in your book, and please keep on doing so for the sake of our sisters around the world.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Inspector Wexford Series, 2008-10-09
The calm and capable Wexford once again solves the local crime. But not before discovering some of the area's most eccentric and immoral personalities, and unearthing new scandals in an otherwise staid and stodgy British suburb. A Wexford novel never disappoints.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Nice Addition to the Wexford Series, 2008-09-18
I have been a fan of Ruth Rendell novels for more than three decades but her Wexford novels have never been my favorite Rendell books. Nevertheless, I have read each and every one of them and have found them to be consistently high-quality police procedurals always worth my reading time. Not in the Flesh, the twenty-first Wexford novel, does remind me that I generally enjoy Rendell's standalone novels and her Barbara Vine novels more but, as always, this latest one is a welcome addition to the Wexford saga.
It all started when Jim Belbury and his truffle-sniffing dog found more than they were looking for on one of their regular attempts to put a few extra pounds into Belbury's pockets. Jim knew that the dog had a real talent for unearthing the valuable truffles so he encouraged his dog to keep at it after it began digging in a likely spot. Unfortunately for Jim, rather than a large truffle, the dog came away with what was left of a human hand that had been buried in that particular spot.
When Inspector Wexford learns that the recovered body has been in the ground for some eleven years, Wexford and his team settle in for some old-fashioned police work and begin to interview everyone living in the vicinity of the crime scene. Matters get complicated when a second body is found within a stone's throw of where the first was recovered. The second victim seems to have only been dead for eight years but Wexford does not believe in coincidence and is convinced that the two deaths have to be related in some way.
Rendell provides an array of characters from various levels of British society for Wexford and the Kingsmarkham police force to interview and it is through a long series of interviews that provide a series of interconnecting clues that the case is eventually solved. Some readers will solve the case before Wexford does but, after all, that can be part of the fun, and no mystery writer should be faulted for letting that happen.
Not in the Flesh has a subplot of sorts that offers Rendell the opportunity to explore the horrors of the genital mutilation suffered by countless young African girls, including those whose families have immigrated to Britain. Wexford, partially at the request of one of his daughters, spends some of his precious time trying to prevent just that horror from happening to a young girl whom everyone expects will soon be taken out of the country to suffer the process. It is a somewhat interesting subplot, particularly in the way that it explores the limitations faced by the British legal system in protecting potential victims but, ultimately, it is somewhat of a distraction.
Ruth Rendell fans will not be disappointed in Not in the Flesh, but first-timers might wonder a bit what all the fuss about the Wexford series is if they stop with this one. That said, I will definitely be reading the next offering from Rendell, whether it be another Wexford novel, one of her standalones, or something written under the Barbara Vine pen name.
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