I’m concerned that preface comes too close to being spoilery, but never mind. If you’re worried about spoilers, just stop reading this review now and give it a few months before you decide to read the first of Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexford mysteries.

That’s right! The very first! Now, I have had some success with Barbara Vine (though not infallible success), and have liked Ruth Rendell less, in spite of their being the same person. But I thought I’d read the first Wexford book and see what I made of it. From Doon with Death is about a poor dull woman called Mrs. Parsons who gets murdered in a forest. Pretty standard mystery fare, including the resolution, though apparently the resolution was Very Shocking at the time. It’s all, you know, fine. It isn’t as brilliant as A Dark-Adapted Eye, for example, but it’s a solid detective murder mystery and I enjoyed it.

Damned with faint praise? Yes, but as I say, not altogether Ruth Rendell’s fault. You’ll know what I mean if you read it.

Here’s the big thing that came out of my reading this book: The afterword in the edition I read discusses Rendell’s attitude toward the Shocking Content and how it is in line with what was believed to be Right and True at the time the book was written. It then says that a read-through of Rendell’s oeuvre is like reading a social history of England from 1964 to the present. Y’all, I love a Project. I love reading things in chronological order from the beginning. Those are things I already love. When someone frames it as being of wider sociological interest to do the exact thing I already love, you know I cannot resist. Hence I will be reading all of Ruth Rendell’s books in order from the beginning, not counting short stories, to the extent that my library access permits me. Project.

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