Friday 8 February 2002

Ruth Rendell: Wolf to the Slaughter (1967)

Edition: Arrow, 1982
Review number: 1061

When a woman goes missing and the Kingsmarkham police receive an anonymous note alleging that she was murdered, Wexford and Burden launch an investigation into the seedier side of English market town Kingsmarkham. (Burden feels, with his conservative outlook, that an unmarried woman who sleeps around should expect trouble.) A human side to the story is provided by the romance which develops between one of their junior subordinates, hitherto strongly focused on his career, and the daughter of a local villain.

Pretty typical of Rendell's Wexford novels, Wolf to the Slaughter is a short and enjoyable traditional detective story.

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