“Simisola” by Ruth Rendell

When Chief Inspector Wexford gets sick, due to a new virus that causes people to lose their balance and fall as they walk, he visits Dr Akande – and soon goes home consoled and even miraculously cured. When Dr Akande calls him in a few days and tells him his daughter Melanie is missing, Wexford is only too willing to help, but it takes him a lot more time – nearly a month.

It’s known Melanie was going to look for a job, but the Adviser she talked to in the Jobcentre has been murdered. Wexford can’t help thinking there’s a connection between the two events. But life is never that simple.

“Simisola” is a detective story, but also a social novel, addressing several issues at once: unemployment, racism, secret slavery, rape and poverty. Written in 1994, it also introduces the term “political correctness” – or just PC – obviously still quite new for the English in that year.

Unemployment – apparently, growing fast in the recession (how 2009 it sounds!) – affects Wexford’s family directly. His daughter Sylvia cannot find a job. Her husband Neil has lost his business. They have to encounter all the hardships that unemployment brings: they can’t afford to keep their house, can’t afford expensive food they are used to, and struggle to keep their car.

Racism is not too far away either – Dr Akande is a Nigerian, and Wexford undertakes a desperate fight with himself to remove all traces of prejudice from his own mind. So, whenever he communicates with his new doctor or just thinks about him, he obviously overdoes on PC. He controls his own speech and even thoughts, but a huge blunder in his actions reveals an unpleasant truth to him: he is still prejudiced. When a body of a black girl is found, Wexford naturally assumes her to be Melanie Akande and brings the grieving parents to identify their daughter without carrying out all the necessary routine – even without as much as looking at the photograph!

The sad discovery makes him reconsider his approach. Overdoing on PC is not the way. I must say, to me it’s obvious that it can only serve one purpose: to disguise the prejudices that live deep inside a person. People who are genuinely unprejudiced will just treat everyone – black or white – the same as a matter of course, just like Ngaio Marsh’s Roderick Alleyn and his wife Troy did. But Wexford is a good person. He really wants to overcome his rudimentary racism, so we know he will succeed. His colleague Inspector Burden is another story: he is seen overdoing on PC too, but in his case it’s simply a pose. He couldn’t care less, and it’s for the reader to decide whether to take him or to leave him.

Now Wexford has three cases to investigate: the disappearance of Melanie, the murder of her Adviser Annette Bystock and the murder – as well as origins – of the unknown girl whom he mistook for Melanie. Then the forth case is added to the already complicated enough chain of crimes: an attempted murder of Oni Johnson.

It soon becomes clear to him that Sojourner – that’s the nickname he gives to the unknown girl – must have been a secret slave, illegally brought to the UK and badly beaten and raped on a regular basis. I must admit that having finished the book I still don’t understand how exactly he arrived at the name of her master (and her murderer). He must have psychic abilities. The book is full of red herrings, and there’s no clue pointing at the right direction, until the end.

It’s longer than the two other books from the Wexford series I’ve already reviewed in this blog – I guess, going deep into social issues requires that. Poverty, theft, slums and scary unemployment levels resulting in the final unrest in the little town – the author describes it all with such mastery that leaves no questions as to why she keeps receiving all those awards – but when she gets to describing people (something she is usually very good at), I can’t help disagreeing with her on a few things. They just don’t ring true! The most glaring example is the lack of gratitude the Akandes show to Wexford when he (spoiler alert) brings Melanie home safe and sound. Well, Laurette Akande has never been too nice towards the Chief Inspector, whether he deserves that or not (too full of herself, that’s my impression), but Dr Akande himself is portrayed through the book as a warm, tolerant, mildly humourous gentleman, and the fact that he never says as much as “thank you” to Wexford is entirely unbelievable. What’s more, he apparently decides to carry a grudge.

C’mon, would any of us who have children believe that?

Sojourner’s destiny (her real name is Simisola) is just horrific – and everyone who has a heart is bound to be devastated by the knowledge that it’s not author’s imagination but terrible reality. Such things have actually happened – and continue to happen. I must say it took a lot of bravery from the author to write this book the way she did.