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Title: Long winded
Review: My first Ruth Rendell novel, listened to on CD. The reading is very good, but the novel is longwinded and relatively boring. Between spousal abuse, bigotry, low life prejudice and multiple police cases, Rendell has taken on way too much here and done a satisfactory job of little. What stands out and suprised me most, tho, is her portrait of the British provincial police as small-minded and not particularly bright. A strange sort of detective fiction that left me wondering if she is really mocking the police. Part of what makes for the longwindedness is how many obviously false leads the police conjur up in long discussions, that then have to be played out in visits to imagined suspects.One thing about some of the reviews. It strikes me that those who complain about her "political correctness" ought to quit whining and just come out and say they think spousal abuse, lynch mobs bigotry, etc., are unworthy subjects for policiers (and other types of fiction?).
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