Why Buy A The Babes in the Wood?
With floods threatening both the town of Kingsmarkham and his own home and no end to the rain in sight, Chief Inspector Wexford already has his hands full when he learns that two local teenagers have gone missing along with their sitter, Joanna Troy. Their hysterical mother is convinced that all three have drowned, and as the hours stretch into days Wexford suspects a case of kidnapping, perhaps connected with an unusual sect called the Church of the Good Gospel. But when the sitter’s smashed-up car is found at the bottom of a local quarry–occupied by a battered corpse–the investigation takes on a very different hue.

The Babes in the Wood is Ruth Rendell at her very best, a scintillating, precise and troubling story of seduction and religious fanaticism–and murder.

Customer Reviews & Opinions

Another Rendell masterpiece!
I am a huge Ruth Rendell fan, and this book did not disappoint me. In it we have a series of bizarre consequences stemming from the disappearance of two teenaged children and their minder on a rainy weekend. The book is set around a huge flood that hits Kingsmarkham, and we have Wexford watching the waters rising in his own yard as he gets drawn further and further into the strange disappearance, and the even stranger family that the children belong to. The book will keep you guessing until the end. Rendell uses the book to also air her views on sexual exploitation, fundamentalist religion and disfunctional families. You always get a lot more than just a mystery with a Ruth Rendell novel. This lady is a masterful writer. Most others pale in comparison.

A soggy, somber tale well told
After the messy nonsense of “The Blood Doctor”, our capable writer, Ruth Rendell is somewhat returned to us in this somber mystery and in the character of the very dour-yet-knowable Inspector Wexford. I seem to remember that a few years ago, Europe endured a summer-long flood of biblical proportions. Rendell uses this as the backdrop for a mystery involving the disappearance of a house sitter who is minding two teenagers whilst their parents are away for the weekend. Wexford is serious, the surrounds are sodden, and there isn’t a lot of action, but the story perks along pretty well and takes some inventive turns. You’ll want to slap the parents of the teenagers silly before the book is through. As usual, we get to see a great deal of Wexford and wife Dora’s personal life and in this book, Wexford’s daughter Sylvia, whom we have come to know through her marriage, children, and divorce, has a desperately unlikable boyfriend who becomes a key part of the story. I think that maybe I had a real appreciation for the endless rain in this book, having just survived one of the wettest years in Maryland history. I think Rendell does drenched very well.

You just gotta love Wexford
I am a bit of a boring person when it comes to the style and topic of books I like to read. I thought I might go out on a limb and read something a little different. Well I sure am glad I did.

This book is great. The characters believable, the plot totally supported with no messy bits that don’t make sense, lots of appropriate subplots, and suspense and teeth-grinding build up.

I won’t describe the plot, you can read that in other people’s wonderful reviews, but I will say if you like your mystery and suspense, then Ruth Rendell rocks.Not only that but her use of description is so right on, I pictured her characters with no problem-not always an easy thing for a forgetful Wiccan monkey

5 stars *****

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