Book Review: The Babes in the Wood

Reviewed By: Fiona Walker

The Babes in the Wood     Amazon UK PB Amazon UK HC
Ruth Rendell
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Police Procedural
Series: Wexford # 19
Hutchinson, November 2002 (UK only, as yet), 323 pages

After intense heavy rain around Kingsmarkham Valley, the River Brede swells, until it eventually bursts its banks, casting forth its murky waters to flood the surrounding area.

When Katrina and Roger Dade return home from a weekend in Paris, they discover the house empty. Their children ­ Giles and Sophie, both in their teens ­ have disappeared along with Joanna Troy, Katrina’s friend who was "babysitting" them. Mrs Dade immediately panics, assuming without reason that her children have drowned in the floods.

The Subaqua Task Force can find no trace of any them in the waters. All three of them have vanished into thin air, and there seems no possible motive for their disappearance. Then, it emerges that 15- year-old Giles was connected to a mysterious Christian group, The Church of the Good Gospel.

It’s been three long years since Rendell’s last Chief Inspector Wexford novel, and now she returns him, and they are both on characteristically fine form once again. It’s a real treat to be able to view the curiosities of this world, as he sees them, through the filter of Wexford’s pondering eye again. This, in my view is one of the strongest of the Wexford series, boasting an especially original and intriguing plot, made all the more-so because of the unusual occurrence of the flooding in Kingsmarkham Valley, which allows what might otherwise be a normal plot to go down different avenues.

As always, the psychology of it all is brilliant. She presents us with a set of seemingly inexplicable human behaviours, and then, through her plot, proceeds to explain then and how they can come about, in the end making it all seem to reasonable. And even if the police procedural aspects aren’t as good as, say, in an Ian Rankin novel, she more than makes up for that with her explorations of the human elements behind crime.

As well as the interesting and well-paced main plot-line, there’s also a great sub-plot involving Wexford’s own family who are always great to read more about.

There are twists throughout, and the final solution is also surprising and mostly satisfying, but for the fact that the reader has only met the culprit once or twice throughout the novel. Still, this is another absolutely first-class crime novel from the ever- expert Ruth Rendell.

Fiona Walker

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Fiona Walker