Very Unorthodox 2nd Outing
Review of the Arrow Books paperback edition (1981) of the original Hutchinson hardcover (1967)

Ruth Rendell surprised me with A New Lease of Death, which is listed as No. 2 in her Inspector Wexford (1964-2013) series. What is shocking about this book, with a supposed series character, is that Inspector Wexford DOES ABSOLUTELY NO DETECTING OR INVESTIGATING IN IT!

Charles, the son of the Reverend Henry Archery, intends to marry Tess, whose father Painter was condemned for the brutal murder of an elderly widow 16 years ago. The then supposed open and shut case was the first murder ever investigated and solved by Wexford. The Reverend Archery now approaches him to investigate the possible innocence of the executed man, in order to remove the stigma of a cursed bloodline from his possible future descendants. Wexford is confident about the early conviction, but admits that he can't prevent Archery from talking to the surviving witnesses.

Archery proceeds with various lines of enquiry and proposes several alternative solutions to the crime. Wexford is still adamant that the correct murderer was caught and rightly convicted. There are several sub-plots which occur during the course of Archery's amateur efforts which do not appear at first to be related at all to the main plot. Everything becomes clear in the end though with a cleverly devised twist ending which satisfies everyone. Saying anything more would be a major spoiler.

I read A New Lease of Death due to the discovery of a hoard of my old 1980's mystery paperbacks while cleaning out a storage locker. I only have a few of the old Ruth Rendell paperbacks, so this isn't the start of one of my binge re-reads. Rendell is definitely one of the masters of the Silver Age of Crime though and I will certainly be re-reading several of her books.

Trivia and Links
A New Lease of Death was adapted for the television in the long running series of The Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1987-2000), sometimes called 'The Inspector Wexford Mysteries'. It ran as Episodes 1 to 3 of Series 5 in 1991. The entire 3 Episodes can be viewed on YouTube here. The TV series stars actor George Baker as Inspector Wexford. ( )

This, the second volume in Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford series, was a bit of a disappointment for me. Wexford and Burden are somewhat marginalized, with most of the sleuthing left to Henry Archery, a man motivated to prove that Wexford incorrectly arrested a man for murder 16 years previously.

The plot and characters never really engaged me. This book had in common with the first Wexford, [b:From Doon With Death|748989|From Doon With Death (Inspector Wexford, #1)|Ruth Rendell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1178000150l/748989._SY75_.jpg|735130], an explanation for a crime that was tied to the need to keep secrets because of the mores of the time. Unfortunately in this case it triggered only a yawn from me.

HOWEVER - what we find in this book for the first time is that insight into human nature, most often demonstrated through a character's interior monologues, that appears so often in Rendell's work. There is an authenticity to the personalities and motivations of her characters that has always resonated strongly with me, and it was rewarding to find it in this book, regardless of what I saw as its other flaws.

BTW, I felt the narration was pretty pedestrian; the reader is pretty ineffective at women's voices.

It is with the promise of those splendidly human characters, and hopes of a plot that is driven by Wexford and Burden, that I look forward to the next volume in the series. ( )

So, did Inspector Wexford botch his first solo murder investigation, or is he correct in saying that the right man, Painter, was hanged for the brutal murder?

Painter's little girl, Tess, has grown up into a beautiful young woman who is in love with, and loved by, a clergyman's son. Archery, the vicar, is sadly under the impression that he might have to watch for murderous tendencies in his grandchildren should his Charles marry Tess. Tess doesn't want to bring shame upon the Archery family in case the old scandal is uncovered, even if she has been reared by a very good man, her stepfather. Tess's mother has been telling her that her father wasn't a murderer, but how could she know?

Archery is looking into the case. Early on he meets the young woman who found the body when she was five years old. She tries to drink her memories away. Sadly for a pedestrian, she drives her car after, if I recall correctly, drinking SEVEN double whiskeys.

Archery meets the nephew of the slain woman and his beautiful wife. Charles finds a way to interview the nephew. Did the nephew do it? They bring the information to Wexford.

The girl who found the body (Elizabeth?) and her mother do not have a healthy relationship. The more we learn about the mother, the more despicable she seems. In the last CD, the daughter describes what she saw and couldn't process when she was five. It's horrible.

Yes, there will be another murder before the book is over.

I didn't particularly like Archery or Charlie, but they weren't insufferable.

Turn up your CD player -- otherwise making out what characters are saying when they're speaking softly might be a problem. ( )

With school starting back this week, and with me preparing for one new class and an overall overload, it took me a bit to get through this one. That isn't to say it's bad, just that I was dozing off mid-chapter and not remembering things I'd read. Going back a few pages and asking "did you read this?" isn't the most pleasant experience.

And yet, I didn't really dig this one. OK, let me say that I didn't dig the first three-quarters. Like the first Wexford, [b:A New Lease of Death|17409466|From Doon With Death / A New Lease of Death|Ruth Rendell|/assets/nocover/60x80.png|24251744] puzzles me. Here, with even more clear references to the mid-sixties, we have a middle-aged man who's daughter is expecting his first grandchild. Then we're to believe he retires nearly fifty years later? At 102? Just in time to appear in the beginning of his retirement in The Vault? OK. Last time.

What really bothered me is also what I thought was the most promising sign. Rendell begins to find her voice in this book, and I think she realizes that she can do more than the typical serial detective novel. I think. I'm not sure, because it almost seems to happen by accident. Really, it seems to happen in the middle of a stroke that the author must have been having, because the change was so jarring I wondered if my edition didn't have a major typo.

Very early on it was clear that this wasn't typical of the series detectives. The Wexford of the series was barely in it at all, making the occasional cameo even though the whole novel takes place in his fictional Kingsmarket, and centers around his first murder case of 16 year ago (or so). And, unlike Doon, even Burden, Wexford's trusty second in command, isn't around much. So much for endearing characters who bring you back again and again.

But that's fine. Half-way through this one and I was beginning to think Rendell's stand alone novels would be the stand outs, but then something weird happened. Jenny kissed Archery (the central character). This is when I realized that Rendell's writing was shifting. Suddenly, it was no longer about the crime that was committed all those years ago. No, it had never really been about that, and so it made sense that Wexford would have little to do with the novel (though, why make it a series entry?). Rather, this book is about the character of Archery, about the draw to others even inside a marriage, perhaps a marriage that only works out of obligation. It's about the relationship of father's to sons, of daughters to fathers, and escaping the sins of those fathers. As the character of Charles revealed himself more and more, the novel became about why some folks would bother to escape at all.

So, in that way it was an interesting read. But it took too long for the road to wind 'round that way, and I don't think it was me being thick. I'm going to read one more, to test my theory. Then, I'm going to have to move on. I have too many things on my reading list as it is, and am adding more now that I'm around my colleagues and students again. One more, Rendell, while I can use my tiredness as an excuse to forego my tackling of more challenging literature. Or perhaps, as I suspect, you will challenge me tonight?[b:The Vault|9785183|The Vault (Inspector Wexford, #23)|Ruth Rendell|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328411256s/9785183.jpg|14675036][b:The Vault|9785183|The Vault (Inspector Wexford, #23)|Ruth Rendell|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328411256s/9785183.jpg|14675036] ( )

(19) The second in the Inspector Wexford series - I have loved many of Ruth Rendell's stand alone mysteries - 'A Judgement in Stone' and a 'Dark Adapted Eye' stand out as really excellent. So far the Wexford series is not nearly as good, but still enjoyable nonetheless. In this one, a minister from a nearby county pays a visit to Wexford and company as his son wants to marry the daughter of a man Wexford had hung for murder many years before. The daughter is a lovely girl reading English at Oxford - how could the blood of murderer run in her veins? Her mother swears the girl's father is innocent - thus an old case is reinvestigated. Not by Wexford this time, but by Reverend Archery who displaces Wexford as the protagonist.

Similar to the first mystery - all of a sudden, towards the end, cryptic conversations take place quickly and it becomes clear that the protagonist has figured things out, even if the reader hasn't. And this reader had not. I was lead astray by red herrings the author planted. And while I usually love to get things wrong - in this case, the whodunnit wasn't oh so shocking after all. But, I will say no more.

I will continue the series - I think I have found a nice substitute for Kinsey Millhone. I suspect Grafton took some inspiration from Rendell in fact -- I seem to recall a similar plot line. . .

However, the best part about reading Ruth Rendell is that her prose is quite good. Nothing fancy, but her novels are atmospheric and well-written regardless of the genre. ( )