Kissing the gunner's daughter - Hardcover

RENDELL, Ruth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0091752183 ISBN 13: 9780091752187

Publisher: Hutchinson, 1992

Synopsis

Investigating the murder of a socialite family, Inspector Wexford is forced to face his own deepest feelings. Called "one of Rendell's darkest and most suble character studies" (SF Chronicle).

About this title

About the Author

Ruth Rendell was an exceptional crime writer, and will be remembered as a legend in her own lifetime. Her groundbreaking debut novel, From Doon With Death, was first published in 1964 and introduced the reader to her enduring and popular detective, Inspector Reginald Wexford, who went on to feature in twenty-four of her subsequent novels. With worldwide sales of approximately 20 million copies, Rendell was a regular Sunday Times bestseller. Her sixty bestselling novels include police procedurals, some of which have been successfully adapted for TV, stand-alone psychological mysteries, and a third strand of crime novels under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. Very much abreast of her times, the Wexford books in particular often engaged with social or political issues close to her heart. Rendell won numerous awards, including the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for 1976's best crime novel with A Demon in My View, a Gold Dagger award for Live Flesh in 1986, and the Sunday Times Literary Award in 1990. In 2013 she was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence in crime writing. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer. Ruth Rendell died in May 2015. Her final novel, Dark Corners, is scheduled for publication in October 2015

Reviews

Rendell's last few books haven't been up to her extraordinarily high standard, but Chief Inspector Wexford's first appearance since The Veiled One (1988) is cause for celebration. The crime under investigation--the murder of monstrous old novelist Davina Flory, her younger MP husband Harvey Copeland, and her daughter Naomi, along with the shooting of granddaughter Daisy--is thick with mysteries beyond whodunit: What were the two criminals looking for beyond a bit of jewelry? How did they make their escape? What's happened to Naomi's business partner, Joanne Garland, and what's her connection to Daisy's father, George (Gunner) Jones? What links the killings to a fatal bank-robbery a year before? Wexford, ruefully treating Daisy as a replacement for his beloved actress daughter Sheila, who's deserted him for an obnoxious, postmodern novelist, patiently sifts the stories of the large cast, setting off the string of quiet, continuous, steadily deepening revelations of character that are the hallmark of Rendell's best work. No matter that the final revelation is at once surprising, predictable (Rendell falls back on one of the oldest clich‚s of the genre), and anticlimactic. The story marks a masterful return to form for the supreme living exponent of the English detective story. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Chief Inspector Reg Wexford is probably Ruth Rendell's greatest creation. In this Wexford mystery we have the typical wealthy family which lives in a mansion with the requisite servants. But things are never what they seem in any Rendell story and, thanks to the sublime presentation by actor Robin Bailey, each member of the cast is portrayed appropriately. Particularly effective is how the irritations, grudges and animosities among characters are immediately discernible to the listener. Additionally, the many subplots and minor characters are well-presented by both author and narrator. This is a wise purchase. S.G.B. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Edition details

• Publisher: Hutchinson
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0091752183
• ISBN 13: 9780091752187
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1