Alice, a promising violinist and just a beautiful young woman, must be the most shocking of them all, since, when we meet with her for the first time, she is cold-bloodedly contemplating leaving her child – her two-month-old daughter – forever and running away from her kind and responsible husband, just so she could become a concert violinist one day. Soon she meets Tom, a talented flautist, for whom a road accident became the end of his career, not so much due to the damage to his body as due to his mental injury. The accident made Tom a difficult, easily annoyed person. He abandoned his college and started playing in the tube. Alice joins his band for a short while. Together with them, we can see a gay couple – Peter and Jay – and some other individuals who come and go.

The plot of the book revolves around the London’s tube and around the old house called Cambridge School or just “the School”. It’s no longer a school though, but just a house in extremely bad repair where the owner – Jarvis Stringer – lets rooms as an extremely cheap rate, just so he could afford travelling around the world examining metro systems, which are his one and only hobby, the only passion of his life. Considered slightly crazy by many, Jarvis is in fact one of the most normal persons in the book, and his hobby is quite harmless. Most of the time we just hear about him, since he is in the USSR, studying our metro systems – lucky man, in fact, since 1991 was the last year of the USSR’s existence, and if he had postponed his trip just a little, he might have had fifteen visas instead of one. But I digress. Jarvis is writing a book about the history of the London Undeground, and “King Solomon’s Carpet” is full of quotations from his book. I must admit I skipped most of them this time.

Among the people who occupy his large house we meet his distant cousin Tina and her two kids, Jasper and Bienvida. Tina is very promiscuous – and proudly so, to the great distress of her mother Cecilia, old enough to be her grandmother and struggling to reconcile her old, almost Victorian morals with the standards of the new world. Cecilia lives in her own house nearby. Her life-time friend Daphne – Peter’s mother – is equaly distressed with her son’s “silliness” – her name for his homosexuality. Peter suffers from AIDS, and by the end of the book his health deteriorates to such a condition that we know his days are numbered, though it is not explicitly stated.

Alice’s love for Tom doesn’t last long – she meets Axel. Axel is all mystery, walking around the tube with an ugly, sinister man named Ivan, usually dressed up like a bear, embarrassing and even scaring some people who, like Cecilia, see no fun in it. We know Axel is up to something, but what it is we won’t know until the end of the book.

A lot of time is given to describing Jasper’s adventures. Tina’s nine-year-old son, usually neglected by his mother, truant and rebellious, travels a lot by the tube accompanied by a few other boys of the same age. Guilty of smoking, shop-lifting and endless fights in the train cars, these boys make enemies at every turn, but the worst of their entertainments is the so-called “sledging” – riding on the top of the train. Jasper has done it many times and enjoyed it intensely – mainly, I think, the danger of it – until his friend falls from the roof of the car he is in when the train stops abruptly. When Jasper sees his friend fall and realises what it means, it changes him.

I don’t know why, but I can’t help liking them all – Alice, Tom, Tina, Jasper and even Axel, who is contemplating a really dreadful thing. He scares Jasper, pretends to be Jarvis’s friend in his absense to squat in his house, seduces Alice while pretending to be friends with Tom – and these all are steps towards his ultimate goal: revenge. It was his twin sister who died in the underground train from a heart failure when she entered it for the first time in her life, a spoilt child of a wealthy family. She did so to satisfy her curiosity and didn’t think of possible consequences, didn’t know what was awaiting her there during the rush hour. But her brother decided to blame the tube. “I am mad”, he said once about himself. I think he was right.

By the end of the book they all get punished, except, probably, Tina, who inherits a nice villa after her mother’s death. Now she can meet all her boyfriends in more comfortable environments and not worry about anything. She is even planning to let some rooms, like Jarvis does. She’ll be alright, this easy-going, untroubled pretty creature. Axel, Alice and Tom are much less lucky, though they all have nobody but themselves to blame.

My special admiration goes for Jed, the hawk-keeper whose chothes stink of stale meat repelling people from him and his room. When told by a vet that his hawk will never be able to fly again due to an infection disabling his wing, he at first decides to euthanise the bird – an obvious thing to do, under the circumstances – but then decides to keep the hawk alive, not for the sake of training it, but just for the sake of being together, of living under the same roof. By sparing the bird’s life, by being able to value it he won my undying respect.

Though Ruth Rendell is mainly known as a detective novel writer, this book is not a detective story at all. It’s a huge psychological study, deep and somewhat disturbing, when we can’t help wondering if normalcy still exists in our world. Why do people do such things to themselves and their lives? She doesn’t give us any answers to the question – just makes us think.

The book definitely does deserve the Gold Dagger Award it got in 1991.

Meanwhile, his daughter Sylvia, with whom he still tries in vain to build a good relationship, starts working to help women who have become victims of domestic violence.

Once again, Ruth Rendell has written a detective story that is much more a book about social problems than a detective story as such. In “Simisola” she talked about racism, secret slavery and unemployment; in “Harm Done” she addresses domestic violence, paedophilia, early pregnancy and the danger of citizens’ riots (which she portrays courageously as a drawback of the “freedom of speech” – freedom not restrained by any feeling of responsibility from the media people themselves).

She also touches on the problem of having insane people on the loose and the dangers they may present.

The book is written in 1999, and the events take place in the same year, or, perhaps, in 1998, but not much earlier. Wexford uses Word for Windows, mentions Taliban, and elsewhere in the book the Princess Diana Memorial Clinic is talked about. As we all know, Princess Diana died in 1997, and it takes some time to build a clinic. So it has to be 1999, but I can’t help noticing that Ruth Rendell has started to “freeze” the ages of Wexford himself and his family. His grandsons haven’t grown at all since “Simisola” (1994). In “Shake Hands Forever” (1975) Sylvia is already a mother of two, so in 1999 her youngest should already be at least 24 – but somehow in “Harm Done” her boys turn out to be younger than the sons of Stephen and Fay Devenish, who are 12 and 10.

Well, writers do this. I know that Ruth Rendell is still continuing her Wexford series, so she has no other way: nobody will keep a 80 year old Chief Inspector. For the sake of the quality of her books I’m only too happy to forgive her for this minor naughtiness.

Husbands beating up their wives need to expect no mercy from the author, as she has none for them, and no excuses. Stephen Devenish is a complete monstrosity: the reader can’t help rejoicing when he is found brutally murdered. Ruth Rendell sees to that. But there are other people whose attitude towards the problem can’t fail to cause indignation. There are a mother and a father to whom their own daughter comes to complain about horrible abuse she has to endure from her husband – and all they have to say is that she must be “provoking” him. The father adds that it’s okay to beat a wife with a stick, as long as the stick is not thicker than the husband’s thumb. Indeed! There is a pub owner who refuses to serve drinks to women who live in the refuge for battered wives. In his mind they are the bad lot, because they dared to leave their husbands; violent brutes who abuse and disfigure their wives are “decent fellows” according to him. No wonder Wexford feels disgusted in the presence of Mr Honeyman. And then there are neighbours of the refuge taking their petition from door to door to be signed, in order for it to be closed.

All this leaves a feeling of total hopelessness, but the book doesn’t depress – it encourages people to look at themselves and reconsider.

“Harm Done” is a very apt name for the book. I have known women who had been victims of domestic violence. I know that even after the brute disappers from their lives (via divorce or whatever it might be), the harm done by him lives on. The wounds on their bodies may heal with time, but their wounded souls never do. It may lead to various disorders – PTSD, for example – thus hampering their ability to communicate with other people, keep friendships and take part in social activities. Harm done to their children – witnesses to the abuse – never wears away either. Their lives are always affected; their own marriages might suffer from the painful memories of their childhoods.

I would like to believe that this brave and honest book written 10 years ago by a brave and honest lady has helped many unfortunate women out of the terrible situation in which they found themselves. I would like to believe that people like Mr Honeyman have significantly dwindled in number during the last decade. I know that people like Ruth Rendell make the world go round – make it a better place. I bow to her.

“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.

The book has everything to be a good detective story: an intricate riddle, an unexpected solution (very unexpected), a nice gallery of faces and characters: rich and poor, vivacious and shy, proud and insecure, extravagant and simple. There is a long and painstaking (but not boring) procedure of looking for clues, questioning people who knew the victim and unravelling an extremely complicated chain of facts and emotions from a single sample of expensive lipstick dropped by someone not far away from the place where the body was found. Fragments from Doon’s letters inserted here and there into the narrative add exquisiteness and reveal Ruth Rendell’s ability to write in a much more refined literary style than the one commonly used for detective stories. They are “special extras” making the experience of reading this excellent book even more pleasant – like quotations from Shakespeare might have done.

The characters, different as they are, all have something in common. Few of them are exactly attractive; most are outright displeasing. They might not be in real life – there is nothing particularly nasty about any of them, mainly just typical human weaknesses – and it all comes down to the fact that the author emphasises their faults and says next to nothing about their virtues. Still, none of them – not even the murderer – will wake up any disgust or contempt in the soul of the reader. Sympathy is what I felt for them all – but I wouldn’t want to befriend any of them, except, perhaps, the victim. Too bad Ruth Rendell consistently makes a point of murdering the nicest person in every book.

The final explanation left me mildly shocked – mostly because I knew it was a book written in 1964. But I’ll leave it at that, just so I don’t spoil my readers the pleasure of reading and trying to guess the name of the murderer.

I do recommend the book.

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.