The Monster in the Box: An Inspector Wexford Novel

From Publishers Weekly In Edgar-winner Rendell's 22nd Inspector Wexford novel (after 2007's Not in the Flesh ), the British police detective confronts a man from his past, Eric Targo, who he suspects is guilty of multiple murders. Years earlier, Targo stalked and taunted Wexford, daring him to press charges. A squat, creepy bully with a purple birthmark disfiguring his neck, Targo has graduated from smalltime thug to prosperous businessman, ensconced in a nouveau-riche spread complete with private zoo and lion in Kingsmarkham. When Targo apparently commits a murder affecting Wexford's own family, the inspector must re-examine how Targo consistently outsmarts the law. The meeting and mating of Wexford and his wife, Dora, also figure in the backward-looking action. While the reminiscing dilutes some of the suspense, Rendell easily outdistances most mystery writers with her complex characters and her poetic yet astringent style. (Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Bookmarks Magazine Although acknowledging Wexford's fascinating foray back in time, critics expressed mixed opinions about Rendell's latest—perhaps last—Inspector Wexford mystery. The most enthusiastic reviews, adopting a nostalgic tone, reminisced about Wexford's years as a young policeman, his personal growth, and the earlier period's cultural milieu. But more critics felt mixed about Rendell's retelling of Wexford's life 30 years before; others criticized the forced, distracting subplot featuring the Muslim girl and Rendell's strained political correctness. The Monster in the Box seems minor compared to previous efforts, and, though interesting, novices may wish to start with one of the earlier books in the series. Ruth Rendell has won numerous awards, including three Edgars, the highest accolade from Mystery Writers of America, as well as four Gold Daggers and a Diamond Dagger for outstanding contribution to the genre from England’s prestigious Crime Writer’s Association. A member of the House of Lords, she lives in London. From The Washington Post From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by by Michael Sims One of the best-written detective series in the genre's history is ending. With "The Monster in the Box," Ruth Rendell says farewell to Reginald Wexford, her popular chief inspector of Kingsmarkham, a small Sussex town south of London. "I don't want to do any more Wexfords," she told the Telegraph this spring. "I have other interests now." Rendell turned 79 this year. Her tone in the 22nd Wexford novel is elegiac, as she looks back over his career and, implicitly, her own. Author and character debuted in 1964 in "From Doon With Death." Ever since, she has been misleading readers and critiquing social change in England. She writes sly, literate prose and spins intricate plots; several Wexfords stand among the finest detective stories ever written, especially "A Sleeping Life," "Simisola" and "Harm Done." Rendell has also published two dozen non-series crime novels and more than a dozen others under the name Barbara Vine. Her list of honors is longer than most authors' bibliographies. Because the Wexford series stars police officers, it has been described inaccurately as a "police procedural," but Rendell admits she knows little about law enforcement. "I've never been in a police station," she confessed in a 1996 interview. "I just make it up." Wexford is a cop for the same reason that Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski is a private eye: Such a premise allows an author to peek into many lives, observe, ask questions and move on. And unlike private eyes, cops have the official power to intervene, whether as nemesis or rescuing knight. Often Wexford plays both roles. Although in her series Rendell has explored every social stratum and issues from ecology to racism to domestic violence, she has really created only two major characters: the inspector himself and his dapper, prudish right-hand man, Mike Burden. Over the years, Burden changes more than Wexford does, as his first wife dies and he marries a more easygoing, progressive woman who lures Burden out of his judgmental conservatism. Wexford's own wife, Dora, is always reliably in the background, but only in the 1997 novel "Road Rage" is she featured. In case you were disappointed with the last couple of Wexford books (the weak "End in Tears" and the merely adequate "Not in the Flesh"), I'm pleased to report that "Monster" brings both Rendell and Wexford back in strong form. Invariably, whenever I predicted the plot would go in a certain direction, I was wrong. For the first time in the series, we glimpse Wexford's youth, his days as a rookie cop, his eager but uncertain approach to his first cases, the comedy of his early dating, even his initial meeting with Dora. These flashbacks appear not apart from the crime trail but within its context. Throughout his career, we learn, Wexford has been distantly shadowed by the monster of the title: Eric Targo, a man who, Wexford is certain, committed at least two murders without attracting suspicion from anyone other than Wexford himself. But the rookie Wexford had no real evidence; powerless, he watched both investigations go astray. Now Targo is back, stalking Wexford as if taunting him. The long-distance perspective in this final book, which takes place in the late 1990s, highlights an issue that develops in any series over time: the question of the protagonist's age. In most of the series, Rendell doesn't state Wexford's age -- at his debut, he was specifically 52 -- but he has definitely grown older, struggling with weight gain, high blood pressure and other bodily ills. Always something of a grouch -- "precious and fussy," one of his colleagues thinks -- he is now "preoccupied," Rendell writes, with "times long past." He recalls everything from restrictions considered necessary for watching the first TVs to interrogation rooms before the smoking ban, and he complains about the "general mealymouthed PC-ness" that dominates public lives nowadays. Rendell also brings back the agonizingly self-conscious and politically correct detective Hannah Goldsmith, who wrestles with the threat of a Muslim girl being forced into marriage. This subplot connects with others. Ultimately, everything weaves together in Rendell's imaginary town, but more so than ever in "The Monster in the Box." We close the book on Inspector Wexford with the knowledge that he has had an illustrious career. And we accept this conclusion because at any time we can return to Kingsmarkham to explore the darker side of humanity with him as our reassuring and humane guide. [email protected] Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1 HE HAD NEVER told anyone. The strange relationship, if it could be called that, had gone on for years, decades, and he had never breathed a word about it. He had kept silent because he knew no one would believe him. None of it could be proved, not the stalking, not the stares, the conspiratorial smiles, not the killings, not any of the signs Targo had made because he knew that Wexford knew and could do nothing about it. It had gone on for years and then it had stopped. Or seemed to have stopped. Targo was gone. Back to Birmingham yet again or perhaps to Coventry. A long time had passed since he had been seen in Kingsmarkham, and Wexford had thought it was all over. Thought with regret, not relief, because if Targo disappeared—more to the point, if Targo never did it again—what hope had he of bringing the man to justice? Still, he had almost made up his mind he would never see him anymore. He would never again set eyes on that short, muscular figure with the broad shoulders and the thick, sturdy legs, the coarse, fairish hair, blunt features, and bright blue eyes—and the mark that must always be kept covered up. Wexford had only once seen him without the scarf he wore wrapped round his neck, a wool scarf in winter, a cotton or silk one in summer, a scarf that belonged to one of his wives perhaps, no matter so long as it covered that purple-brown birthmark which disfigured his neck, crept up to his cheek, and dribbled down to his chest. He had seen him only once without a scarf, never without a dog. Eric Targo. Older than Wexford by seven or eight years, a much-married man, van driver, property developer, kennels proprietor, animal lover, murderer. It was coincidence or chance—Wexford favoured the latter—that he was thinking about Targo for the first time in weeks, wondering what had happened to him, pondering and dismissing the rumour that he was back living in the area, regretting that he had never proved anything against him, when the man appeared in front of him, a hundred yards ahead. There was no doubt in his mind, even at that distance, even though Targo’s shock of hair was quite white now. He still strutted, straight-backed, the way a short man carries himself, and he still wore a scarf. In his left hand, on the side nearest to Wexford, he carried a laptop computer. Or, to be accurate, a case made to hold a laptop. Wexford was in his car. He pulled to the side of Glebe Road and switched off the engine. Targo had got out of a white van and gone into a house on the same side as Wexford was parked. No dog? Wexford had to decide whether he wanted Targo to see him. Perhaps it hardly mattered. How long was it? Ten years? More? He got out of the car and began to walk in the direction of the house Targo had gone into. It was one of a terrace between a jerry-built block of flats and a row of small shops, an estate agent, a nail bar, a newsagent, and a shop called Webb and Cobb (a name which always made Wexford smile) once selling pottery and kitchen utensils but now closed down and boarded up. Mike Burden had lived here once, when he was first married to his first wife; number 36, Wexford remembered. Number 34 was the house Targo had gone into. The front door of Burden’s old house was painted purple now, and the new residents had paved over their narrow strip of front garden to make a motorbike park, something Burden said he resented, as if he had any right to comment on what the present owners did to their property. It made Wexford smile to himself to think of it. There was no sign of Targo. Wexford walked up to the offside of the van and looked through the driver’s window. It was open about three inches, for the benefit of a smallish dog, white and a tawny colour, of a feathery-eared, long-coated breed he didn’t recognise, sitting on the passenger seat. It turned its head to look at Wexford and let out a single, sharp yap, not loud, not at all angry. Wexford returned to his car and moved it up the road to a position on the opposite side to the white van between a Honda and a Vauxhall. From there he could command a good view of number 34. How long would Targo stay in there? And what had he been doing with the laptop or the laptop case? It seemed an unlikely place for any friend of Targo’s to live. When he had last seen the owner of the whitish tawny dog and the white van, Targo had been doing well for himself, was a rich man, while Glebe Road was a humble street where several families of immigrants had settled and which Burden had moved out of as soon as he could afford to. Wexford noted the number of the white van. He waited. It was, he thought, a very English sort of day, the air still, the sky a uniform white. On such a day, at much the same time of year, late summer, he had visited Targo’s boarding kennels and seen the snake. The scarf round Targo’s neck had been of black, green, and yellow silk, almost but not quite covering the birthmark, and the snake which he draped round it had been the same sort of colours, the pattern on its skin more intricate. Accident or design? Nothing Targo might do would surprise him. The first time he had seen him, years and years ago when both were young but Wexford was very young, Targo wore a brown wool scarf. It was winter and cold. The dog with him was a spaniel. What was it called? Wexford couldn’t remember. He remembered the second encounter because that was the only time Targo had for a few minutes been without a scarf. He had opened the front door to Wexford, left him standing there while he picked a scarf, his wife’s, off a hook and wound it round his neck. In those few seconds Wexford had seen the purple-brown naevus, shaped like a map of some unknown continent with peninsulas running out to his chest and headlands skimming his chin and cheek, uneven with valleys and mountain ranges, and then Targo had covered it…. Now the front door of number 34 opened and the man emerged. He stood on the doorstep talking to a young Asian, the occupant or one of the occupants of the house. The young man, who wore jeans and a dazzlingly white shirt, was at least six inches taller than Targo, handsome, his skin a pale amber colour, his hair jet-black. Targo, Wexford noticed, might have grown old but he still had a young man’s figure. The T-shirt he wore showed off his heavily muscled torso, and the black jeans emphasised his flat stomach. He had left the laptop behind. While he was in the house, he had taken off his blue-and-white scarf. Because it was warm, no doubt, and, incredibly, because it was no longer needed for concealment. The birthmark had gone. For a moment Wexford asked himself if he could possibly have made the wrong identification. The yellow hair had gone white, he couldn’t see the bright blue eyes. The purple naevus had been the distinguishing mark which primarily identified him. But, no, this was Targo all right, squat, stocky, muscular Targo with his cocky walk and his confident stance. The Asian man walked a few steps down the short path with him. He held out his hand, and after a short hesitation Targo took it. Asians shook hands a lot, Wexford had noted, friends meeting by chance in the street; always men, though, never women. Someone had told him the Asians at number 34 owned the defunct Webb and Cobb next door—for what that was worth. No doubt they received rents from the tenants of the flats above. Targo came across to the van, opened the driver’s door, and climbed in. Wexford could just about see him stroke the dog’s head, then briefly put his arm round it and give it a squeeze. If any doubt was left, the dog identified him. A memory came to Wexford from the quite distant past: the first Mrs. Targo, by then divorced, saying of her ex-husband, “He likes animals better than people. Well, he doesn’t like people at all.” The white van moved off. It might be unwise to follow it, Wexford thought. He hadn’t much faith in his powers of following a vehicle without its driver spotting him. It would be easy enough to find out where Targo now lived, harder to say what use discovering his address would be. He sat there for a few moments longer, reflecting on how seeing Targo again had instantly made him aware of his own physical shortcomings. Yet when he had first seen him, all those years ago, he had been a tall, young policeman, very young and very fit, while Targo was squat and overmuscled and with that horrible facial mark. Sometime in the years since they had last encountered each other, Targo must have had the naevus removed. It could be done with a laser, Wexford had read in a magazine article about new remedies for disfigurement and deformity. The man had been making a lot of money, and no doubt he had spent some of it on this improvement to his appearance as others had their noses reshaped and their breasts augmented. The stranger thing, he thought, was that Targo still sometimes wore a scarf even on a summer’s day—until he remembered and stripped it off. Did he feel cold without that neck covering he had been wearing for most of his life? A girl was walking past Wexford’s car, starting to cross the street between it and the Honda. She looked about sixteen, wore the dark blue skirt and white blouse with a blazer which constituted the uniform of Kingsmarkham Comprehensive and, covering her head, the hijab. In her case it was a plain headscarf, the same colour as her skirt, but unflattering as it was, it failed to spoil her looks. Her dark brown eyes, surmounted by fine shapely eyebrows, glanced briefly in his direction. She went towards the house Targo had come out of, took a key from the satchel she carried, and let herself in. Too old to be the daughter of the handsome young man. His sister? Perhaps. Five minutes later Wexford was parking the car on his own garage drive. Instead of letting himself in by the front door, he walked round the back and surveyed his garden. It was a large garden, which Dora had been doing her best to keep tidy and under control since thei... Read more