The Babes in the Wood by Ruth Rendell

The Babes in the Wood is the 19th book in the Inspector Wexford series. So far, I have had an on and off relationship with Rendell's books; 'off' with her non-Wexford books, 'on' with the only other Wexford book I have read. But as crime novels are my guilty pleasure and a sure cure for high-stressed times, I decided to give this a go.

Two teens and their 'baby sitter' have gone missing. It is up to Wexford and his team to fight the floods and find out what happened.

This was a pretty decent mystery. It definitely kept me guessing, which is an unusual occurrence. 

One thing that can be said about Rendell's writing, is that she writes well. The standard of the language in her crime novels (that I have read so far) are far superior to the more popular books in this genre. I also enjoy the fact that one needs to be paying attention to pick up all the clues.

I was very satisfied with this book. The logic was rational (which sounds silly to say, but lets be honest, it isn't always that way in books, where situations and characters are twisted 'out of character' to accommodate a plot error, or to move the plot in a direction), and the characters were believable. Although I did feel that there was a bit of a drag nearing the middle, it makes sense that a lot of footwork and waiting needs to be done.

One thing that bugged me though was the head cop who was, to put it mildly, asininely stupid in the beginning. It makes one disbelieve that he would have ever made it to that position with his head so far in the sand. (OK, so apparently I did have one problem with a character being twisted out of belief.) Oh, and I suppose I should add that my thoughts are still out on Wexford's daughter. I don't want to believe that women would put up with that level of abuse and make such accommodations for abusive men, but that does not mean it isn't a realistic (if unfortunate) occurrence. As I said, I have not made up my mind about that. I will say though, that my father would have been a lot less aware of any law had that have happened to me. Either that says a lot for Wexford's character, or a lot for my dad (who was brilliant).

Crime lovers, especially of older crime novels (the non-forensic, blood-guts-'n-gore crime books) would probably enjoy this. It was a decent puzzle to solve. I only gave this 3 stars, because, although I was satisfied with this novel, I wasn't blown away. In fact, to write this review 2 months after finishing it, I had to squiz through the synopsis on Goodreads to make sure this was the book I thought it was. (Thank Merlin I keep notes most of the time when reading so I can still write about what I have read months later.)