“Shake Hands For Ever” by Ruth Rendell

It’s a Chief Inspector Wexford mystery and my first ever acquaintance with the character. I’ve read a book by Barbara Vine – and Barbara Vine and Ruth Rendell are the same person – but my dear friend Ann once recommended that I read the Chief Inspector Wexford series. She thought I’d like it. What’s more, she sent me a gift – an parcel in which several of those books were neatly placed.

I started with “Shake Hands For Ever” quite by chance. The others are still waiting for their turn to be greedily consumed. Not that I’m overly enthusiastic about this first one or think it perfect – but it’s rewarding without doubt.

Remembering Barbara Vine’s piece to be quite depressing, though a fascinating read, I expected Ruth Rendell’s one to be the same. Indeed, when the book begins with “The woman standing under the departures board at Victoria station had a flat rectangular body and an iron-hard rectangular face”, what can you expect? I must admit I expected this woman to be the one to be murdered – in a detective story someone has to be murdered – but I was wrong here. Anyway, the book captured me soon, but as it proceeded and the author made it look like the riddle was solved and the main difficulty was about acquiring proof, it became a little depressing and hard to read. I wondered why the author needed to make it so long, to stretch the unnecessary torture. Was it merely for the sake of a certain number of words?

I was wrong again. The way everything turned around and upside down on the last 5 pages making the it one of the most unexpected endings I’d ever come across rewarded me completely for my patience. I understood that everything in the book – every page, every word, every casually dropped hint – was of extreme importance, totally necessary to make the final solution neat and completely justified. In good detective stories every detail falls into place at the end – and this is a very good detective story.

The personality of the Chief Inspector Wexford is what you might describe as “warm and fluffy”, though not to the man he was chasing for fifteen months to prove himself true. If I ever planned on a murder, I wouldn’t want him to investigate it He is way too perceptive and sees deeply into every detail of the crime – and of course, like in all detective stories, he is not supposed to lose or be wrong, ever. Like other famous detectives, he seems to be almost a magician.

I’m now looking forward to reading other books by the same author, as I know they will give me a lot of pleasure at the end, even if I have to suffer a little on my way there.