A Sleeping Life

Ruth Rendell is my favorite author - in fact, her books are the only ones I read. I've probably read 90% of her books. I read her books over and over again because they always fascinate me. I tried a Patterson novel recently and thought it so bad that I threw it against the wall. A Sleeping Life is one of my favorites. Ruth writes true mysteries, you think something is going on and then realize that it isn't what you think at all. She layers her stories, you go along and all of a sudden, something new is revealed. This happens over and over, all the way to the end. It's sort of like being in Inspector Wexford's head. She is considered by many critics the best mystery writer in the world and yet very few people I run into, know of her. Some of her writings have made it to PBS - but they do not give a good representation of her writing and I think this is because there is a lot of narrative in her books and it is hard to show this in film.

Although I figured out the curious twist of the book early on, I still read it, fascinated by Ms. Rendell's skill. I am catching up with some older Inspector Wexford mysteries that I have missed over the years, and so came to "A Sleeping Life". Ms. Rendell is a master in creating a world where nothing is what it seems, and this book does this marvelously. It is different too because Wexford has an unidentified corpse for over half the book, and he is getting more and more frustrated as he goes up one blind alley after another. But a word and its meaning turn it around for him, and he manages to untangle the web, and discover the killer. If you are a mystery lover, than you cannot miss any one of Ms. Rendell's books. (And she has a lot of them).

Although first published in 1964 this book is still completely readable today. A Sleeping Life is an Inspector Wexford mystery which deals with the investigation into the stabbing of a middle-aged woman whilst visiting her ill relative in Kingsmarkham. Although he knows her name, the womans life away from Kingsmarkham remains a mystery which haunts Wexford. There are many twists and turns as Wexford comes nearer to discovering what drove the woman to hide the truth about herself. The conclusion, while perhaps not as shocking today as it was then, is nicely done.As usual Rendell has created a diverse range of interesting, and in some cases psychologically-flawed, characters. The scenes I enjoyed most were those with Sylvia, Wexford's daughter. She has left her husband after becoming interested in Woman's Lib, and has moved back in with her parents, Wexford and Dora. I was particularly amused by a piece of dialogue where Sylvia cries: "By God, my life is more his than it is mine!"(Referring to her husband, Neil). It really does point out how gender roles in the past have stiffled women - thank goodness that times have changed! However, I liked the way that Rendell also gave Neil's point of view about his wife's views so it wasn't one sided. Overall A Sleeping Life is great. There are plenty of opportunities for Wexford to use his dry, clever wit. The plot is solid and there is a good twist at the end. The sub-plot is entertaining and the characters are unusual.JoAnne

Rendell is a difficult writer to pin down; while, working as she does within the mystery/crime genre, her books inhabit different areas of that particular literary country. The Wexford series has always been best classified as police procedural, while the othe books are more psychological, plotted less closely along conventional crime novel lines. Within the Wexford series, Rendell has of late been injecting a lot of social commentary into her books and the plotting - Rendell fans must admit that her puzzles are easier to figure out than most - has fallen off. Her best crafted Wexford mysteries (as opposed to "novels" or "literature," which came a bit later) were from the 1970s (here, 1978). Rendell's best, most prominent characteristics are all here; the emphasis on psychological makeup and motive, the ability to draw characters and relationships with only a few lines of dialogue or interior monologue, the presence of details that few other writers put to such good use in delineating said characters, the use of dead ends, mistakes, and wrong assumptions and guesses by Wexford in the exposition. While Rendell is outstanding at what she does, not all crime fiction fans like her stuff. One would do worse than to begin here to find out where you stand. If you like this, moving on to other Wexford books, or the darker, non-series classics like "A Dark-Adapted Eye" is only a small step. If not, forget it.

This is one of Inspector Wexford's most baffling and gripping cases. Highly recommended for its orginality and plot twists. Very worthwhile.