Kissing the Gunner's Daughter

Our story opens with two chapters that may be considered a prologue. By an inconsequential series of events, a bank robbery goes bad and a policeman is killed.

Chapter 3 opens eight months later with the very bolldy murder of a family and the severe wounding of the youngest family member. Celebrity author and general pain Davina Flory, her husband, former M.P. Harvey Copeland, and her daughter Naomi ahve been fatally shot, while graddaughter Daisy has been seriously wounded.

Who wanted to kill this family, and why? What is the connection, if any, between the bank robbery and the "Tancred Massacre"?

As always, author Rendell uses Inspector Wexford's intelligence and sensitivity to explore the hidden emotions driving the action. This is a serious and well-done character study. ( )

Another terrific mystery plus from Ruth Rendell, chock full of interesting characters, absorbing plot twists, lucid prose and lovely little extra bits (ah, the famous novelist). ( )

An excellent whodunnit, and one of the more gory murder scenes that Wexford has encountered - if you like that sort of thing. ( )

The first Rendell book I ever read, and it was all together different from what I was expecting. I thought it was going be a shoot-em up and it turned out a delightful mystery with a Wexford detective that I really liked and I liked Burden as well. ( )

Pedestrian murder investigation. The literate Chief inspecter Wexford gets notified of a 999 call from a young girl claiming "they are all dead, I think I'm going to die too, hurry before I blead to death" and that's about all the excitement in this book. He and his team arrive at "Tanscay" the home of a rich literary authoress who with her husband, and daughter have all been shot. The granddaughter Daisy Flory, also shot but still alive is rushed to hospital. What follows is plodding and dull investigation where Wexford speaks to a few of the people who live on the estate, and four weeks pass without anything notable happening. Quite how the 4 or 5 people he speaks to manage to fill 4 weeks is unclear. Some of this time is interspersed with Wexford's family issues. these may once have been of interest to readers who have been following Wexford's career, but they are at best distracting, and mostly dull for the casual reader. There is a while when you are hoping that the new boyfriend will be implicated in the murder plot simply ot liven things up, but alas this doesn't come to pass.

The Blurb on the back says "not an unecessary word" but along with all the other faulty praise this is wrong too. There are long paragrpahs of pretentious descriptions of the woodlands, that do nothign to move the plot along, and fail to move the spirit either.

Some of the characterisation of Daisy is not too bad, and Wexford's interaction with his subordinates is also reasonable but overal not an entertaining read, nor a particularly well written book, though the ending is reasonably well contrived. Speaking of contrived, the book's odd title is explained part way thorugh, though it has little if any bearing on the plot. ( )