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4.0 out of 5 stars
Murder, family and race keep Wexford hopping, Feb 2 2004
Winner of three Edgars and four Gold Daggers, Rendell is a master of tightly constructed plots, characters under pressure and heightened atmosphere.Simisola, her 16th Inspector Wexford mystery, set in the fairly small town of Kingsmarkham, England, opens with Wexford's new doctor -an African immigrant - beseeching the chief inspector for help finding his daughter, Melanie, last seen at the unemployment center. Melanie's home life is strict and Wexford assumes she's shaking off the yoke until the claims adviser who helped Melanie at the job center is found murdered. Meanwhile Wexford's whiny daughter Sylvia and ill-matched husband are both jobless and going on the dole. Wexford, fretted by guilt at his impatience towards his daughter, and knowing that he would not be making daily visits to Melanie's parents if they were not black, muses over social attitudes, ingrained prejudice and motives for murder until the body of a young black woman is discovered. There are few blacks in Kingsmarkham and despite several small clues to the contrary, Wexford assumes it's Melanie. After a night of grief, the family arrives at the mortuary only to find a stranger. Wexford, mortified, approaches the three-part investigation with new insight - re-examining every assumption, taking note of every tiny discrepancy.
Kingsmarkham is large enough to encompass slums, council flats and elaborate estates, allowing Rendell to involve a wealthy and flashy female politician, a surgeon and his lackadaisically privileged children, a petty thief, an adulterous businessman, unemployed youth and a hidden black underclass in a story that unwinds in dark twists and turns of grubby secrets. Although the explosive ending may seem unrealistically grotesque to some, it's still vintage Rendell - suspenseful and wholly absorbing.
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