No More Dying Then

Finally!

I don't know what has kept me coming back to this series, but I'm glad I held on. Perhaps it was the strength of the later, stand-alone novels I'd read of Rendell's, but this series had so many problems in the first five volumes. What made the difference? Two things: characters, and technology.

Primarily, this series is about what all good series (hold on a sec, maybe I'm jumping the gun on "good" for the Wexford series) are: the characters. What has been odd at times is the focus Rendell places on Burden, the nudge-winkingly named understudy of the titular Wexford who seems to be so much more interesting to the author. Yet, the books are a part of the Wexford series. Still, I'm starting to see what she's doing now, even if she show more wasn't aware of it in the beginning. Much like Doyle's detective, these stories are really about Burden, much as the Holmes stories are about Watson (Really, they are). Wexford comes in to make the intuitive leap (Holmes never really deduces anything-- he's really all about inductive reasoning) and the human drama centers around Burden, who in this novel is still grieving the loss of his wife, who apparently died in between books. The focus on Burden becomes necessary because Rendell's made Wexford too perfect; the worst you can say about him is he can be a bit prickly. Burden, who is so stoic and conservative in the earlier novels, here reveals a vulnerability, even a recklessness, that while not Rebus in nature by any stretch, gives us a chance to see a more dimensional character. Finally. I'm still digesting, but it seems as though Rendell has created (at least in this novel, but it seems to be pointing in a particular direction--we'll see how it goes) Wexford as a comic foil to Burden's pathos.

The second thing that makes this book so much better is a minor thing, but it goes far in correcting a near-fatal error for me. Rendell largely avoids technology. More than anything else, technology can date a story, and in the earlier books Rendell clearly, obviously, places her stories in the 60s. I kid you not, the installation of an elevator plays centrally in the previous novel as an intruding, unwanted advancement, and the novel instantly becomes a period piece as a result. This novel? No technology. It could have happened (almost) at any time. It almost makes up for the fact that Wexford is a grandfather in this book and, 40 years later is newly retired. How old is this guy?

OK, rambling. This is a welcome change, and I can only hope it is a trend going forward. We'll see tonight... show less

Kidnapped or Murdered?
Review of the Arrow Books/Cornerstone Digital Kindle eBook edition (2010) of the original Hutchinson hardcover (1971)

Wexford gave a tiny sigh, the outward and audible sign of an inward and outraged scream. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said thinly. ‘Just enlighten me as to which one of you two intellectuals is acquainted with George Eliot.’ Far from living up to Monkey’s image of a man intimidated by the police, Mr Casaubon had brightened as soon as Wexford spoke and now rejoined in thick hideous cockney, ‘I see him once. Strangeways it was, 1929. They done him for a big bullion job.’ ‘I fear,’ Wexford said distantly, ‘that we cannot be thinking of the same person. - Inspector Wexford reacts upon

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being introduced to blackmailer 'Mr. Casaubon' by small-time crook Monkey Matthews. Mr. Casaubon is otherwise the name of a character in George Eliot’s (penname of Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880)) novel Middlemarch.

This continues my 2023 binge read / re-read of Ruth Rendell's (aka Barbara Vine) novels and it is the 6th in the Inspector Wexford series. Part of the joy with Wexford is the number of literary quotes and allusions which Rendell inserts into the text, but which are usually not explained. The above quote is an exception as it hints that the name "Mr. Casaubon" is associated with writer George Eliot. We can share and enjoy Wexford's surprise that the small time crooks he meets would have any knowledge of the Middlemarch novel.

See cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/53/Nomoredyingthen.jpg
Cover image for the original Hutchinson hardcover edition from 1971. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

No More Dying Then is otherwise a novel about a child abduction which hints back to an earlier disappearance and possible murder of another child in the same vicinity. Wexford's assistant Mike Burden is still mourning the loss of his wife and is distracted from his police duties. An extensive subplot involves him becoming involved with the divorced mother of the 2nd abducted child and the reader will become concerned that the woman may in fact be a suspect. The tension increases when the body of the first child is found even while the second is still missing. It is all wrapped up with a twist ending.

Another favourite quote from the book:

Night is a time for conjecture, dreams, mad conclusions; morning a time for action.

Trivia and Links
No More Dying Then was adapted for television as part of the Ruth Rendell / Inspector Wexford Mysteries TV series (1987-2000) as Season 3 Episodes 1 to 3 in 1989 with actor George Baker as Inspector Wexford. You can watch the entire 3 episodes on YouTube show less

I can't say this was my favourite of Rendell's but a good read nonetheless. I particularly enjoyed Burden's character as a fallible, lost man who crosses over the professional line due to his mental vulnerability.

(11) In this installment two children have gone missing in Kingsmarkham and Wexford and Burden are on the case. Except this time, it appears that between this book and the last, Burden has been widowed. No more is he the contented do-gooder husband, loyal sidekick of Wexford but troubled and lonely. He falls in 'love' with the mother of the missing little boy and we bear witness to his inner turmoil.

The cases themselves are no great shakes as usual - the solution seems to come out of nowhere and is not 'guessable.'- at least by me. I am not sure I have ever truly figured out any of these 'whodunnits.' I am not sure that is the point. I am realizing that the Inspector Quirke novels written by John Banville are a bit derivative of show more Rendell - the boozy, brooding, atmospheric type detecting where the detectives are often as flawed as the criminals. There always seems to be one character on the 'good' side who is dealing with dark thoughts that Rendell decides to let us in on. In this case, Burden's lust and bizarre jealousy of her missing son.

I liked this about the same as the others in the Wexford cannon thus far. Eminently readable (read in about two sittings) but not nearly as good as her stand-alones. Her stand-alones that I have read are much more compelling from a psychologic and literary lens. It is nice though to have a substitute for Grafton's Kinsey Milhone. These are about the same caliber though very different atmospherically. show less

A little boy teased by his friends on a playground runs away and vanishes. Is the case related to the disappearance of an older girl six months before?

Wexford is now fully realised as the character I know from some of the later books. Burden's sufferings are sympathetically portrayed, perhaps more so than they would be nowadays. However, the solution is not quite so satisfying as in some of Rendell's other works.

No More Dying Then concerns the abduction of two children, a 12-year-old girl and, months later, a 5-year-old boy. The stepfather of one of the children could well be called a jinx because disasters (for other persons) follow in his wake. What we learn about one of those disasters shows how appallingly callous Ivor Swan is.

I've never liked Inspector Wexford's prim and proper assistant, Inspector Burden. In this book Mike Burden is still so grief-stricken over his wife's death from cancer (nearly a year ago now) that he is neglecting his work and his children. Good thing that John and Pam have their Aunt Grace, their mother's sister, looking after them. Grace, a nurse, is fed up with Mike's neglect of his children. She also wants her show more life back.

Mike becomes infatuated with the missing boy's mother and falls off the prim-and-proper bandwagon. He's still being very selfish. A less understanding supervisor would probably have sacked (fired) him.
Will he shape up and fly right?

The investigation into the personalities involved and the descriptions of places are compelling.

This book is is copyrighted 1971, so perhaps we should not be surprised that callous reporter Harry Wild references the real-life Cannon Chase Murders (also known as the A34 Murders) in chapter 8. The murders of 5-year-old Diane Tift and 6-year-old Margaret Reynolds occurred in 1965. Raymond Leslie Morris was considered the prime suspect in their deaths, but he was convicted for the 1967 rape and murder of 7-year-old Christine Darby, for which he died in prison in 2014. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2789355/notorious-child-killer-died-jail... (If you're interested in the paranormal, Cannon Chase also has been known for sightings of various kinds.)

I also enjoyed learning about 'St. Luke's Little Summer' in chapter one. (Here in the US we would call it 'Indian summer'.)

Technically, the Inspector Wexford series is a police procedural, but fans of cozy and classic mysteries like it too. show less

Rendell is in full force here, offering her trademark insightful reflections on a wide variety of characters, including, this time, Wexford’s colleague Mike Burden.

I enjoyed the plot, in which her many red herrings swim back and forth between two missing child cases months apart. Despite the fact that I was struggling with the YouTube app (not, IMO, a user-friendly interface but the only audio option I could find), I stayed engaged through the end.

For the first time in the series (to my recollection) there are some interesting women in [b:No More Dying Then|83432|No More Dying Then (Inspector Wexford, #6)|Ruth Rendell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403168226l/83432._SY75_.jpg|2013066]! Although show more I found one of them to be somewhat unbelievable, others were fully realized adults. Definitely a move in the right direction.

It has been so many years since I originally read this series that each book I now revisit as part of a group read is a refreshing experience. So glad I'm participating! show less