Veiled One

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining Wexford novel
Review: I don't find Ruth Rendell's Wexford mysteries as engrossing as her psychological novels, but anything by Rendell is nevertheless entertaining and well worth reading. This one finds Wexford and his partner, Mike Burden, investigating the death of an older woman found strangled in a parking garage at a shopping mall. Numerous suspects abound in the woman's neighborhood but Wexford is soon incapacitated, however, by a car bomb (meant for someone else). Burden takes the lead by pursuing a withdrawn young man who lives with his domineering mother. Burden's intuition fails him though and it is Wexford who eventually identifies the killer by subtly noting the habits and motivations of the suspects and even the items they purchased in the shopping mall. The book is a little overlong for a Wexford mystery and gets sluggish a little in the middle but picks back up toward the end. Every character seems like a likely culprit (the victim was a blackmailer) and it is hard to see what is coming until close to the last chapter. If you are just beginning with Ruth Rendell, don't let this one detract you from her - she is one of the best writers in the world today.

Rating:
Summary: Very Good
Review: I wish some of the many Ruth Rendell fans would have reviewed this one so I could have a jumping off place. Since I discovered Ms. Ruth in September 2001, I have worked my way through 21 of her 50 or more, aka Barbara Vine. Inspector Wexford's stories are not as interesting to me as some of the non Wexford works but this was a neat one and I never dreamed the killer would be the killer. This was the most convoluted, mixed up mystery I think I have ever reaad. The victim really got what she deserved, hope that is not a spoiler. The last 20 pages seemed to go rather fast, compared to the first 2/3 of the book. But oh, well, It was good.

Rating:
Summary: 14th fine Wexford novel
Review: The Veiled One is Rendell's 14th Inspector Wexford mystery, and as excellent as all the rest. The continued quality of this series is remarkable. There have only been one or two slightly lacklustre books in it, and those were very early on in her career.

One November evening, Wexford drives him from Barringdean Shopping Centre, noticing nothing amiss. He is preoccupied with family matters. precisely, his daughter Sheila who, in protest, has damaged Ministry of Defence Property, the wire fence surrounding a nuclear weapons facility. An actress, her face is automatically splashed across the papers.

Later, at home, Burden phones through with the news: a garotted body has been founding in the Shopping Centre Car Park, hidden between two cars. She is identified as Gwen Robson, a home-help of late middle-age, who lives in Kingsmarkham with her arthritic husband. However, before Wexford himself cna do much investigating, he too faces death, in the form of a politically motiovated car-bomb inteded for his daughter Sheila. So, Mike Burden forges ahead on his own, quickly narrowing in on a suspect, the son of the woman who found the body. But are his intuitions right?

This is probably Rendell's most psychologically rich mystery. Some of the characters are quite odd, and she lays them psychologically bare, creating fascinating and rather unsettling psychological portraits. Indeed, the depth with which she examines her characters in this book is probably unequalled in any other Wexford novel.

Wexford is on excellent form again, and it's often easy to forget quite what a great lead character he is. An aging policeman, increasingly puzzled by the foibles of society - which Rendell highlights with a percision that emphaises the sharp social conscience of this novel - he should, perhaps, be a little dull. But no! For he's actually a interesting, funny, real human being. A relatively gentle policeman who gradually unravels the solutions to the puzzles which confront him. He has a home life which is realistic and entertaining, and he is quite simply very good company.

The Veiled One is not just a rich psychological mystery, but also an excellent puzzle. The investigation shifts and twists, and the solution is singularly surprising. It's an uneasy, disturbing, unusually gripping police-procedural that has distinct echoes of some of Rendell's psychological thrillers, although never strays quite into that territory. It's an excellent book in the series, but I would say that it's not the best Wexford novel for new readers to start with. To appreciate it fully, it helps if you already know the characters well. My advice is to read the very first Wexford mystery, From Doon With Death, and then simply look forward to this one.

Rating:
Summary: A tangled web...
Review: The Veiled One was the first Ruth Rendell novel and I am delighted to report that I was thoroughly captivated and entertained. Rendell writes fluid prose with interesting characters and acute observations about human nature and behavior. I particularly liked the main character Wexford and his naturally dry and mostly sarcastic wit. The mystery is well plotted and wraps up neatly. To be honest, the ending did occur to me, but by the time I got to the end I was impressed enough by the whole effort that I didn't care about that at all. The ending is quite satisfying... the type that makes sense while still surprising enough. I look forward to many more enjoyable evenings with Ruth Rendell and Chief Inspector Wexford.

Rating:
Summary: A tangled web...
Review: The Veiled One was the first Ruth Rendell novel and I am delighted to report that I was thoroughly captivated and entertained. Rendell writes fluid prose with interesting characters and acute observations about human nature and behavior. I particularly liked the main character Wexford and his naturally dry and mostly sarcastic wit. The mystery is well plotted and wraps up neatly. To be honest, the ending did occur to me, but by the time I got to the end I was impressed enough by the whole effort that I didn't care about that at all. The ending is quite satisfying... the type that makes sense while still surprising enough. I look forward to many more enjoyable evenings with Ruth Rendell and Chief Inspector Wexford.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best
Review: This a most satisfying Wexford and Burden tale of detection, and all the better for not being an overtly "psychological" novel, with which it should not be compared.

If you are more interested in the process of the detection of the crime, and in the characters who detect, rather than in the warped mind of its perpetrator, you will enjoy this as much as any other in the series.

Ruth Rendell made her name with Wexford and Burden, and she still writes at her best when she returns to the genre which first brought her success. This is no exception.