A satisfying read. The man-and-his-dog who appear in the first chapter don't put in another appearance till the last one, and there is indeed a huge cast of characters.

What holds the interest in this book is that though the plot is wholly believable, it's quite impossible to guess where it's really going until well towards the end of the book. There's a plot, and a sub-plot. There are characters who look at first as though they're there to make the numbers up. They aren't. Each has an imprtant part to play.

I think I've said enough. If you enjoy Inspector Wexford tales, this won't disappoint ( )

Cold Cases + Wexford’s Seventh Law
Review of the Seal Kindle eBook edition (2010) of the original Hutchinson (UK) hardcover (2007).

I seem to be entering the area of diminishing returns with the late Wexfords. I don't know if it will be the same case with the late non-Wexford-Rendells or the Barbara Vines, as I haven't read any of them yet. The level of enjoyment is diminishing as the cast on the police side increases and the amount of quotable banter between Wexford and Burden decreases. The cases are becoming ever more complex and unrealistic and it seems that every book has to have a subplot involving one of the tiresome Wexford daughters and their current social cause.

The case begins with a truffle dog unearthing a long buried skeleton in a filled in ditch. Various suspects come to light in the vicinity and soon yet another skeleton is discovered in an abandoned shed. There is a lot of tracing of previous inhabitants but the actual identity of the victims remains a mystery for the longest time. Confusion abounds as unrelated 'relatives' give DNA samples to add to the problems. A reclusive author and a bizarre household with a present and a past wife living under the same roof become the centre of the investigation and of course Wexford solves it all in the end.

Not in the Flesh continues my 2023 binge read / re-read of Ruth Rendell and this is the 21st of the Inspector Wexford series. I have had to skip over Wexford #15 to #18 as I haven’t been able to source them yet. I think I'm going to give the Wexfords a rest for a while and try out some non-Wexfords for a bit.

See cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/89/RandomHouse_Hutchinson_RuthRendel...
Cover image for the original Hutchinson (UK) hardcover edition from 2007. Image sourced from Wikipedia..

Wexford's Laws
Wexford’s Law No. 7 appears in this book. Wexford’s Laws are occasional thoughts about quirky observations made by the Chief Inspector for which he assigns a number.

In the list he kept in his head, Wexford’s Seventh Law was that while women like cold food and loved raw food, men do not.

Favourite Quotes

When the man had gone he said, ‘“Life is but a process for turning frisky young puppies into mangy old dogs and man but an instrument for converting the red wine of Shiraz into urine.”’ Wexford didn’t recognise the quotation. ‘Who said that?’
‘Isak Dinesen. I may not have got it quite right but that’s the gist.

Other Reviews
Review at Rich, Tangled and as Sharply Observed as Ever by Kirkus Reviews, June 10, 2008.

Trivia and no Link
Not in the Flesh was not adapted for television as part of the Ruth Rendell / Inspector Wexford Mysteries TV series (1987-2000) as the novel was published after the series had ended. ( )

Really enjoyed this - Wexford reminds me of Barnaby in Caroline Graham's novels... I'll be sure to read more. ( )

Read on a long plane trip from New Haven to Honolulu; good vacation read. The dog digging up smelly truffles must be Rendell's spirit animal. Author specializing in psychological realism gets fantasy revenge on fantasy writers ("stabbed with a frenzy"). ( )

Part of the excellent and most prolific Ruth Rendal series regarding Chief Inspector Wexford" ( )

OK readable but not great . ( )

I enjoyed this book but it didn’t seem too different from the Inspector Lynley series by Elizabeth George, except for way better editing. There is the relatively well-adjusted Inspector (in this case, a family man who is even a grandfather), without an alcohol problem (although he likes a glass of red wine now and then), assisted by a number of detective constables of various races and genders, including a black male who disconcerts witnesses, and a white female who struggles with a weight problem. There is a lot of attention to detail, from the furnishings of houses they visit, to the coffee and/or tea they are offered by those they question, and to the meals they have.

Rendell, who is a member of the House of Lords in real life, devotes a bit more time than Elizabeth George to social and political issues, but not so much as to be off-putting about it.

The crime involves two skeletons discovered on unused property in rural Flagford, England, with the suspects primarily being the people living on its perimeter. As the story unfolds, the identity of the killers and motive for the crime became apparent even to me - among the most dense of readers, but it didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of the process.

Evaluation: This book is a typical example of a British crime detective novel, and provides a pleasant way to pass an afternoon. The author is very popular and has won a number of awards from crime and mystery writer associations.

Note: This is apparently the 23rd book in the series featuring Chief Inspector Wexford, but I had no trouble whatsoever following the plot. ( )

Inspector Wexford marches on, amid the stumbling blocks of modern culture and the deepening shadows of age. His presence, as always, is a pleasure, as is that of Mike Burden. And the story in this mystery, as ever, is puzzling and well-crafted, with various interesting characters popping up and dropping out. As to the socially relevant subplot, something that I usually enjoy very much in this series, it seemed a little forced this time round. A minor quibble, but enough to make me give it 3.5 stars rather than the usual 4. ( )

Literate, absorbing mystery. I'm never disappointed when I finish a novel by Ruth Rendell. ( )

It’s difficult to review a mystery without giving too much away. In this case, all I need to say is that Ruth Rendell has written her typically good Chief Inspector Wexford mystery. The characters are familiar, they’re older, but they act as they always have. A relatively new character, Detective Sergeant Hannah Goldsmith, makes an interesting foil for Wexford’s reflections on age and a changing society.A familiar character, Inspector Mike Burden, “...had at last, regretfully, discarded his designer jeans for charcoal trousers with knife-edge crease and a stone-colored polo neck under a linen jacket.”Rendell continues to fit current social issues into her stories. She can be edgy at times but never crosses the line into the lurid or overly violent. I find her approach relevant and appropriate.Not in the Flesh has several plot threads that may or may not intertwine or ever be resolved. Discovered bodies, missing persons, migrant workers, immigrants, odd marriages, mysterious writings. It’s great storytelling. I understand that The Monster in the Box, which is the next Wexford mystery, is also the last Wexford mystery. It’s been a good run and a great reading pleasure. ( )

It's a long time since my last rendezvous with Wexford and his chums, and I have missed some of his more recent outings. It's interesting to note the way he reacts to changes in the world around him over the years. Now he's forced to drink wine the poor love, and all his staff have taken to calling him 'Guv' because that's what happens on 'The Bill'.

Rather less blood and gore than your average murder mystery, though the (slightly incongruous) subplot involving the Somali family is calculated to bring tears to the eyes of the queasy.

I liked the book despite a rather convoluted plot that was hard to follow at times (particularly keeping track of the multitudes of missing menfolk). It also seemed that the crime was solved by the expedient of selecting one possible theory from an array of thousands, and running with it. Also, it's a small detail, but surely the copper who was going around loading police data onto his personal laptop was committing some kind of offence?

What I liked about the book was the attention to detail in characterisation. I read on the back of one of Ruth Rendell's books an extract from a review that said she is 'great at writing about young people'. I would disagree - she is surely best at writing about old people, and when it comes to the sort of objectionable old gits that populate this novel, she is top notch. ( )

Another wonderful Wexford mystery. Rendell never disappoints. ( )

Enjoyed the book but didn't love it. I would try another of this author's books though because a lot people rave about her. ( )

The central mystery in this installment of the Wexford series concerns two bodies killed 3 years apart that are discovered on the same property in Flagford, near Kingsmarkham.
True to formula Rendell interleaves the details of the CID investigation with both the personal lives of Wexford and his team, and a "social" subplot concerning the integration of Somali customs into the rural England of the early 21st Century.
Sad to say for once none of these narrative strands are handled as well as long-time Rendell readers have come to expect. The solutions to the murders are signaled early on, and it's simply a matter of waiting for the right "type" of character to appear; we gain no great insights into the interior lives of the detectives and the Somali sub-plot is badly thought out and executed with bizarre pacing.
This last is the most disappointing. In the past Rendell has done a fine job of discussing this type of issue in the context of popular fiction and I really wanted her to take care and apply the same even handed treatment she has given to e.g. Domestic Abuse in "Harm Done".

Given the track record of the author, this later addition to the series is lightweight and disappointing. 2.5 stars. ( )

Pretty good audiobook. I solved the mystery a few chapter before Inspector Wexford did, though. I hate that. I like to be surprised. :) ( )

I didn't really get in to this book. The author obviously wanted to make a strong moral point about women's circumcision and it seems a fairly hurried attempt to tack it on to the main story and it didn't come off. There were some interesting characters but I found myself just trying to finish the book so I could move on to something else, rather than looking forward to finding out 'who done it'.

I have been a fan of Ruth Rendell novels for more than three decades but her Wexford novels have never been my favorite Rendell books. Nevertheless, I have read each and every one of them and have found them to be consistently high-quality police procedurals always worth my reading time. Not in the Flesh, the twenty-first Wexford novel, does remind me that I generally enjoy Rendell’s standalone novels and her Barbara Vine novels more but, as always, this latest one is a welcome addition to the Wexford saga.

It all started when Jim Belbury and his truffle-sniffing dog found more than they were looking for on one of their regular attempts to put a few extra pounds into Belbury’s pockets. Jim knew that the dog had a real talent for unearthing the valuable truffles so he encouraged his dog to keep at it after it began digging in a likely spot. Unfortunately for Jim, rather than a large truffle, the dog came away with what was left of a human hand that had been buried in that particular spot.

When Inspector Wexford learns that the recovered body has been in the ground for some eleven years, Wexford and his team settle in for some old-fashioned police work and begin to interview everyone living in the vicinity of the crime scene. Matters get complicated when a second body is found within a stone’s throw of where the first was recovered. The second victim seems to have only been dead for eight years but Wexford does not believe in coincidence and is convinced that the two deaths have to be related in some way.

Rendell provides an array of characters from various levels of British society for Wexford and the Kingsmarkham police force to interview and it is through a long series of interviews that provide a series of interconnecting clues that the case is eventually solved. Some readers will solve the case before Wexford does but, after all, that can be part of the fun, and no mystery writer should be faulted for letting that happen.

Not in the Flesh has a subplot of sorts that offers Rendell the opportunity to explore the horrors of the genital mutilation suffered by countless young African girls, including those whose families have immigrated to Britain. Wexford, partially at the request of one of his daughters, spends some of his precious time trying to prevent just that horror from happening to a young girl whom everyone expects will soon be taken out of the country to suffer the process. It is a somewhat interesting subplot, particularly in the way that it explores the limitations faced by the British legal system in protecting potential victims but, ultimately, it is somewhat of a distraction.

Ruth Rendell fans will not be disappointed in Not in the Flesh, but first-timers might wonder a bit what all the fuss about the Wexford series is if they stop with this one. That said, I will definitely be reading the next offering from Rendell, whether it be another Wexford novel, one of her standalones, or something written under the Barbara Vine pen name.

Rated at: 3.5 ( )

Two bodies are found in short succession on the same acreage of rural Flagford, England. One is determined to be eleven years gone and the other eight. Could this be just a coincidence? Methodical Detective Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford and his team will find out, even if it takes multiple visits to the many quirky residents of this little berg as well as to the cities where suspects may have moved in the long intervening years. Without a hint of gory violence Rendell slowly peels back the layers of her mysteries, revealing tidbits about the lives of the investigators as well as the suspects and witnesses. A side story about the growing Somali population in the neighboring city of Kingsmarkham and an attempt at an illegal genital mutilation seemed wholly out of place to the main story line. But readers who enjoy full-bodied literary mysteries will, once again, enjoy Wexford in this 21st title in Rendell’s long-running series. ( )

not quite as good as ususal, although coverage of genital circumcision is good from such a popular author ( )

I expected a lot from this tale, and it had a pleasant well-crafted feel to it that I enjoyed. It was also, however, infected with a strange stasis, as if everything was frozen, including time. The ending was predictable yet I still enjoyed it - because of the strength of the central character, I suppose. ( )

I used to love all of Ruth Rendell's novels, but think that I've become tired of the Wexford ones. Wasn't gripped by yet another man walking his dog and coming upon human bones, and didn't read beyond the first few pages. I continue to be fascinated by her other books--am reading Adam and Eve and Pinch Me now and am neglecting work for it.

NOT her best, the parallel social story seemed less integrated with the main murder, Sheila and Sylvia going through the motions, and for the first time I got it about half way through. Still, quite enjoyable! ( )

Another classic Wexford novel but with hints of modern life such as "voicemail" and "electronic messages". Like Ian Rankin, Rendell uses a younger female character (Hannah) to give the modern policing feel whilst Wexford remains resolutely against all things "P-C" from ideas as simple as the metric system... It's a traditional who-dunnit with an underlying sub-plot about female genital multilation. I kept expecting the two plots to come together however they never did. This didn't make either plot any less absorbing however. ( )

Honey the dog is a wonderful hunter for truffles. But this time she unearths something less savoury - a human hand. Another case for the inveterate duo Reg Wexford and Mike Burden. The body is male, and has been there for over 10 years, wrapped in a purple bed sheet. In this story Reg Wexford seems to be a little less clearly drawn and we learn more about the dynamics of the team he works with. The plot is a spider web of threads. It is all about degrees of separation, those threads that draw us together. And running through all the murder mysteries, missing persons and threads of deception, something else Rendell has on her mind - female circumcision, ritual genital mutilation of young immigrant children, providing a rich undercurrent, shoiwng Rendell as aware of the issues of her times as ever. ( )

I figured it out halfway in. ( )