MYSTERIES in PARADISE: Review: FROM DOON WITH DEATH, Ruth Rendell

5 April 2025

Review: FROM DOON WITH DEATH, Ruth Rendell

This edition read as an e-book on Kindle (Amazon)
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0031RSBQO
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cornerstone Digital; Special edition (January 26, 2010)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 26, 2010
Print length ‏ : ‎ 214 pages
#1 in the Inspector Wexford series

Synopsis (Amazon)

AN ORDINARY LIFE. AN EXTRAORDINARY DEATH.

The trampled grass led to the body of Margaret Parsons.

With no useful clues and a victim known only for her mundane life, Chief Inspector Wexford is baffled until he discovers Margaret's dark secret - a collection of rare books, each inscribed from a secret lover and signed only as 'Doon'.

Who is Doon? And could the answer hold the key to Wexford solving his first case?

My Take

My first review of FROM DOON WITH DEATH on this blog is from 2009 but I had read it earlier than that. I have re-read it this time for discussion with my U3A Crime Fiction group. I have chosen Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine as one of our Award winning crime fiction writers.

This is the first of the Wexford series, the first of 24 novels, published between 1964 and 2013, a period of 49 years. Wexford is a mature detective at the beginning of this series, already 52 years old. His sidekick Inspector Mike Burden is younger but also reasonably mature.

Ruth Rendell always said that she wished Wexford had been younger at the start of the series.

There are almost no clues to who murdered Margaret Parsons and I think the solution must have shocked readers back in 1964. Rendell leads the reader carefully to some conclusions about the nature of the killer, although the final reveal still has elements to shock.

There is almost none of Wexford's personal life in this novel. He and Burden spend huge amounts of time, some overnighters, investigating the case.

My rating: 4.6