Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Royal Rendell and the Great Gladys

Ruth Rendell, who turned 84 a couple months ago, is still scribbling away, five decades after the publication of her first novel, with a new book, The Girl Next Door, scheduled for publication later this year.  Rendell fans will know that she writes three types of crime novels.  Under her own name she produces traditional police detective novels and psychological suspense thrillers, while under the pseudonym Barbara Vine she writes denser, multi-layered mysteries more in the Victorian style (if fully modern in subject matter).

Ruth Rendell
In my view, the Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford series that Rendell launched fifty years ago, with From Doon with Death (1964), is one of the finest bodies of series detective fiction produced in the last half-century. Of the dozen Chief inspector Wexford novels published between 1964 and 1983, there is only one real comparative "dud," I think: the sophomore effort A New Lease of Death (1967).

While the Rendell Wexfords from this period, like Rendell's sister Crime Queen P. D. James' earlier Adam Dalgleish novels, offer clever, fairly clued puzzle plots, I think they are more forward looking than James' books. Though a policeman and not an "eccentric amateur" sleuth, James' Dalgleish seems more a throwback to the Golden Age Great Detective, being a sophisticated yet isolated loner (a poet no less).

On the other hand, Rendell's Wexford, with his wife and daughters and his sidekick subordinate, Mike Burden, seems to have helped set the mold for numerous crime fiction series about provincial English policeman (and, more recently, policewomen).  Often people say they prefer the "psychological" Rendells or the Vines, but I think the Wexfords should receive their due too.

Beginning in 1985 with An Unkindess of Ravens, Rendell began writing longer Wexfords (all her Rendells got longer at this time, like the books in her Vine series, which was launched in 1986; this has been, of course, a general trend in crime fiction over the last three decades). Between 1985 and 2013 Rendell has published another dozen Wexfords, which are more of a mixed bag in my view.  The puzzle plotting tends to be more diffuse, while there is greater emphasis on social issues (feminism, racism, environmentalism, child molestation, spousal abuse, female circumcision).

I was going to review Ravens here this week, but to be frank I found this novel the worst Wexford I have read.  To me the writing was flat and the characters uninteresting (the women, for example, seemed caricatures, either stereotypical doormat housewives or stereotypical strident feminists, which really surprised me, coming from this writer). I can't help feeling that at this time her creative interest was really drifting over to the psychological Rendells and the debut Vine (The Killing Doll, 1984, The Tree of Hands, 1984, Live Flesh, 1986, A Dark Adapted Eye, 1986). Coming right in the middle of that "Big Four," Ravens seems particularly unmemorable.

I decided to go back and look at the novel Simisola (1994), arguably, I think, the best of the later Rendell Wexfords.  This has the overt political dimension Rendell now likes in her Wexfords, plus strong writing and characters and a more focused plot.  It's also longer in the modern style (I'm guessing about 120,000 words), so I am not quite ready for the full review!  But I hope to have more soon.

Gladys Mitchell
Meanwhile, I wanted to alert readers of this blog to the fact that a lot of new Gladys Mitchell titles are available, in both the US and UK (check out Amazon and Amazon.co.uk).  I am planning a post on Gladys Mitchell later this month.  I think she was a genuine Golden Age Crime Queen, on the level of Christie, Sayers, Allingham and Marsh, but have never actually blogged about her here to date.

As in the case of my "humdrum" favorite, John Street, many of Gladys Mitchell's books are extremely rare--she never really caught on with US print publishers--and expensive, which has put them out of the reach of most readers.  Now she is accessible again, with a wide range of works.  Good news indeed!

24 comments:

  1. I met Ruth Rendell a number of years ago when I introduced her as part of a panel on mysteries at a Writer's Festival. I didn't get to spend much time with her (frankly she was the most unpleasant mystery writer I've ever met, so no great loss) but I did take the time to compliment her on "From Doon With Death", saying that I had enjoyed it so much because it was clever and innovative and in the style of the Golden-Age mysteries I love so much. "Oh," she sniffed. "PUZZLES. I'm not interested much in PUZZLES any more." She pronounced the word "puzzles" as if it was equivalent to "German measles" or "tarantulas". I believe she writes Wexfords for the money; I agree completely that her interest has changed to writing psychological novels and I find all her books now are creepy, meretricious, and absolutely unreadable.
    I think Simisola is about the last Wexford that I actually managed to enjoy, partly because after I read the book I saw an interesting television production of it. But I'll be looking forward to your review as usual.

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    1. That's a great story and it confirms how I see the shift in her work. Both she and her friend PD James in the 1980s seem to have very consciously shifted more to the style of mainstream novels. It won them a lot of critical prestige but left the traditionalists unsatisfied! I think the James novels from the 1960s and 1970s are superior to her later books, both as mysteries and as novels, personally, but this seems to be a minority view.

      I didn't like Rendell's Babes in the Wood or End in Tears at all, but enjoyed Not in the Flesh (although it's a mediocre mystery at best), so will give her latest Wexford from last year a try. I also want to go back and look the other later Wexfords.

      I remember at the time kind of getting tired of Wexford's daughters and how they were always being made to reflect whatever social/policial issues were current at the time (nuclear power, environmentalism, pedophilia, etc.). It got to the point where I started to dread the names Shelia and Sylvia. but, acutally, am enjoying in Simisola how Rendell looks at the joblessness problem in England at the time, it sounds very much like the US today! Rather interesting.

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    2. It's quite true that Rendell was for many years quite disdainful of Agatha Christie, but she now admits to the brilliance of Christie's puzzles. So if you want puzzle-plots, read Christie and some others who were good at it. Rendell is more interested in motivation than fitting pieces of a puzzle together, especially forcing them together for a pre-determined outcome. She moved beyond the boundaries of the 'whodunnit' because she's more interested in the 'whydunnit' - what motivates people to do the sometimes terrible things that they do? I'm sorry noah-stewart found RR to be 'unpleasant' - she was extremely gracious to me on the two occasions when we've met (and considering the stacks of books I brought along to be signed, she might well have had reason not to be!), and has continued to be so via email correspondence.

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  2. I found the above very interesting; i've never read any wexfords although i did watch most of the tv adaptations starring the late george baker (who also played roderick alleyn a few times in the 1970s) i do recall seeing her being interviewed a long time ago and her saying she would probably do one more wexford as she was finding it difficult to think of plots for him- that was at the time of 'the veiled lady', which makes me think that either she later acquired enough plots to encourage her to keep doing wexfords, or that she has sacrificed these in the knowledge that her audience will still buy wexfords. That said, my mother reads every one of them, and i've not heard her complain of any dip in quality. One thing you mention in your feature makes me think though- if we can blame todays habit of crime programmes being two hours long on the success of the early inspector morse series, is there any one crime author we can blame for the modern book being so long? I suspect its publishers trying to encourage airport fiction sales, but am wondering who started the trend

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    1. Delighted to know that someone other than me has seen those old New Zealand TV productions featuring George Baker as Roderick Alleyn, they're charming. I think I would blame Elizabeth George for the bloated length of the modern mystery ... when "A Great Deliverance" struck it big, my memory tells me that all of a sudden mysteries got 20, 30, 40% bigger. And most times without a commensurate increase in reading pleasure.

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    2. Grimwig, I really do get the feeling that Rendell kind of lost interest in puzzle plotting (Noah's anecdote certainly confirms this) in the mid-80s, at least in the Wexfords. Some of the Vines actually have fairly clued mysteries, like Asta's Book. Was the trade-off of the intricately puzzled Wexfords for the psychological Rendell thrillers worth it? For a lot of readers, apparently yes. In my own case, I have felt that most of Rendell's later thrillers have repeated the basic patterns of earlier ones, less profitably over time. I do like some of the earlier thrillers, however, and I think some of the Vines from the 80s and 90s are quite brilliant.

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    3. Oh, also, I do think that's why she started putting more political stuff into her Wexfords; she has gotten more interested in that than the puzzle plots. In the best of her later Wexfords, like Simisola, her political/social themes mesh with the mystery, but in some of the later ones they don't even seem to really hang together. In Not in the Flesh, her concern with genital mutilation is interesting, but it's like a completely independent plot element and unsatisfying from a mystery standpoint.

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    4. I've read ASTA'S BOOK 14 times. It has become my GOOD SOLDIER.

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  3. Once agian we were on the same wavelength. It's getting to be very spooky. But I'm going to beat you to Gladys this time, my friend. Just finished DANCE TO YOUR DADDYyesterday and it was quite a good one. Review on my blog tomorrow morning.

    I too discovered the treasure trove of Gladys Mitchell eBooks released by Amazon in the US. Happened last year sometime. I don't remember anyone covering or plugging that story on any of the vintage mystery blogs. And Vintage in the UK has been promising a slew of Mitchell books for reprinting for the past three years. Finally, they are coming out. Good news indeed!

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    1. I declined to spend $150 on an old copy of a certain GM title some years ago and haven't seen it since, until now, when it costs $4 on Amazon as an eBook. I still have lots of hc Mitchells I would like to see to collectors, but I am glad more people finally are going to have access to her books. Not everyone will like her, but some certainly will like her a lot.

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  4. This is a very interesting post. I have read all the Wexfords... that is I think I have. I may have missed the ones in the 1990s because I went through a non-reading period (at least mysteries and other fiction) at that time. So I plan to go back and revisit those. I haven't liked the latest ones as well, but still a decent read.

    Amazingly, I don't think I have read Gladys Mitchell books. Various reviews have encouraged me to do so, but I haven't gotten around to buying any yet.

    I liked Noah's comment about Elizabeth George starting the trend toward longer books. I did like A Great Deliverance, but I don't like huge books, and Elizabeth George's books get longer and longer. I have given up on her because of that.

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    1. Tracy, I just tend to feel crime novels rarely benefit from being really, really long, unless they are written by, oh, Wilkie Collins, say! I do make some exceptions. I think some of the Barbara Vines, which are written more in the Victorian style, are great. But generally I think the Wexfords are better shorter. I still enjoyed Not in the Flesh, but even Rendell's most ardent fans wouldn't contend, surely, that's it has a brilliant mystery plot. Yet some of her earlier Wexfords have really clever plots/

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    2. Ah, Elizabeth George, who fell in love with every word she wrote, which is why I stopped reading her about 240 pages into PLAYING FOR THE ASHES. It had previously taken me two attempts to read its predecessor, MISSING JOSEPH, and that attempt at PLAYING FOR THE ASHES may have been my third - I finally asked myself why I was torturing myself trying to plow through an over-written imitation British mystery, when I had the real thing right there on my shelf. So I put down the George book and went back to P.D. James. And George's books ONLY GOT LONGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The pity, of course, is that George is obviously better-known in the U.S. than Rendell, and has received the added exposure of the Lynley TV serials being shown here - very few of the Wexfords were - the TV exposure also did a great deal for P.D. James in the U.S.

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    3. Agree with you about the George books!

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  5. I think the only lengthy modern crime novel that's justified its size has been reginald hill's on beulah height. That is the only book i can remember reading when halfway in i thought 'oh good, i've still got 300 odd pages to go', The worst example i can remember was 'river of darkness' by rennie airth, which seemed to have every characteristic of the bloated book: extraneous padding, gratuitous, anachronistic sex scenes (we're asked to believe an English DI in the 1930s would have consensual sex with a total stranger in their garden!) and any mystery element of the story wrapped up before the story was two thirds of the way through. Sorry, total modern trash, posing as golden age puzzle to lure readers like us in was my cynical conclusion.

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    1. I agree about that Reginald Hill and some others by him. Also the Vines, but many others, including those by PD James, just seem unnecessarily long to me.

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  6. I stopped reading Ruth Rendell sometime in the 90s. The books just got a little too weird for me. But I liked them up until then.

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    1. Audra, I think the Wexfords have remained a haven of normality in the Rendell canon--certainly Wexford himself is. Of course her other books have a quite remarkable collection of right odd'uns!

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  7. Great blog! I am reading the Wexfords in order, and loving them! Her puzzles are brilliant. I have only finished the first six. You have me worried that the later ones will disappoint! I have heard lots of great things about Kissing the Gunner's Daughter; did you care for that one?

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    1. This is a very relate reply but I did like Daughter, it has a nice puzzle though is more detailed than the early ons.

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    2. http://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2015/02/termination-at-tancred-house-kissing.html

      This is my review of Kissing the Gunners Daughter.

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  8. Wish I had read this informative post before I selected my first Rendell novel, and I might have avoided the stinker I ended up with. Looks as if there were others even worse. I read Not in the Flesh, which you liked somewhat, but I found awful. Babes in the Wood or End in Tears would have sent me to heavy therapy.

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    1. Sorry about Flesh, I liked it for reasons that had less to do with its mystery plot, I'll admit. She has much better plotted detective novels than that one!

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