Book description
The twenty-first book to feature the classic crime-solving detective,
Chief Inspector Wexford.
Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth
something slightly less savoury - a human hand.
The corpse, as Chief Inspector Wexford is informed later, has lain
buried for ten years or so, wrapped in a purple cotton sheet. The post
mortem can not reveal the precise cause of death. The only clue to
solving this mysterious murder is a crack in one of the dead man's ribs.
Wexford knows it will be a difficult job to identify the dead body.
Although it covers a relatively short period of time, the police
computer stores a long list of missing persons. People disappear at an
alarming rate - hundreds each day.
And then, only about twenty yards away from the woodland burial
site, in the cellar of a disused cottage, another body is found.
The detection skills of Wexford, Burden and the other investigating
officers of the Kingsmarkham Police Force are tested to the utmost to
discover whether the murders are connected and to track down whoever
is responsible.
Ruth Rendell is crime writing at its very best. The author of over
50 novels, she has won many significant crime fiction awards. Her
first novel, From Doon With Death, appeared in 1964, and since
then her reputation and readership have grown steadily with each new
book.
She has received major awards for her work; three Edgars from the
Mystery Writers of America; the Crime Writers' Gold Dagger Award for
1976's best crime novel, A Demon in My View; the Arts Council
National Book Award for Genre Fiction in 1981 for The Lake of
Darkness; the Crime Writer's Gold Dagger Award for 1986's best
crime book for Live Flesh; in 1987 the Crime Writer's Gold
Dagger Award for A Fatal Inversion and in 1991 the same award
for King Solomon's Carpet, both written under the pseudonym
Barbara Vine; the Sunday Times Literary Award in 1990; and in
1991 the Crime Writer's Cartier Diamond Award for outstanding
contribution to the crime fiction genre.
Her books are translated into 21 languages. In 1996 she was awarded
the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.
