End In Tears

I have written before in this blog of my huge admiration for Ruth Rendell. At one time, I had read every novel and short story she'd published, both under her own name and as Barbara Vine. In the past 10 years or so, however, I've missed a few titles, and I've rather felt that (with a few notable exceptions) her most recent books have not quite reached the remarkable standards of excellence that she set in the past. But she remains a gifted writer, and I'm keen to fill in the gaps.

I decided that I'd try an audio book version of one of her Wexford stories, and was tempted by End in Tears, especially as it was read by Christopher Ravenscroft, who was so good on television in the role of Detective Inspector Mike Burden. I really like the Wexford series, and I also admired the performance of the late George Baker as a very believable television Wexford.

Again, however, I have felt that there has been something of a falling-off in the more recent Wexford books. For my taste, Rendell became a little too anxious to shove some social comment into the stories, and in such a long-established series, this occasionally seems a bit awkward and unconvincing. But I make this observation simply because I think Ruth Rendell is such a fine writer that she ought to be judged by the most demanding standards (most of the rest of us need justice to be tempered with a liberal dose of mercy!)

End in Tears is a well-constructed mystery, although not ideally suited to audio book abridgement, which led to a slightly fragmentary narrative and perhaps too many characters. The social comment element here is about surrogacy, and I found this fairly interesting. But the actual murder motive was, to my mind, genuinely fascinating, and neatly concealed. This book may not rank with the best of Wexford, but it is still enjoyable and I'm glad I've caught up with it at last.

Harm Done

There was a time when I devoured each new Ruth Rendell book as it appeared, but she became so prolific that, in the end, I faltered, and I managed to miss a couple of Wexfords, including Harm Done. I’ve now belatedly watched the television version, and I was very impressed. It gives the impression of being reasonably faithful to the original, not least by virtue of its sheer complexity.

Rendell manages to tackle three difficult subjects – domestic violence, vigilante mob violence, and child abduction – and to combine a deep understanding of character with a clever plot, full of unexpected turns. In some of her recent books, I have felt her attempts at social and political commentary have detracted from the impact of the story, but that was not the case here, where the various elements of ‘message’ and ‘mystery’ were skilfully blended.

At first, it seems as though the main story will involve the abduction of two teenage girls from a bus stop. The girls tell a tale, once they come back home, that reminded me slightly of the Elizabeth Canning affair – but Rendell gives it a modern and chilling, yet ultimately melancholy, twist.

In fact, the central characters are a wealthy and seemingly devoted couple who have three young children. The husband, a successful businessman, has recently been receiving hate mail. When their daughter goes missing, it seems as though a paedophile is at work, and local vigilantes vent their fury on a woman whose elderly husband, just released from prison after serving a sentence for killing a child, has come to live with her because he has nowhere else to do. The unreasoning rage of the mob is very well captured, and the story-line has lashings of irony.

It turns out that the explanation for the little girl’s disappearance is nothing to do with paedophiles, but it rings frighteningly true. Clare Holman, an under-rated actor who was excellent in both Fallen Angel and Lewis, is very good as the unhappy wife. And George Baker and Christopher Ravenscroft excel as Wexford and Burden. I enjoyed and admired this episode. I switched on expecting a bit of comfort viewing – in fact, it was an uncomfortable story, but a memorable one.

The Secret Adversary

Very belatedly indeed, I have just watched the television adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Secret Adversary, first screened as long ago as 1983. The book itself was Christie’s second, a light-hearted thriller, and it’s safe to say that it would now be pretty obscure had its author not proceeded to write some of the finest of all whodunits. The plot has its ludicrous moments, but it’s a very lively story with likeable protagonists, and the adaptation by Pat Sandys played to these strengths, as well as treating us to some sumptuous photography.

This was the story which introduced Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley, who went on to marry, and cropped up occasionally in Christie stories for the rest of her career. Here, just after the First World War, they are at a loose end and in search of adventure. Tommy overheard a conversation about someone called Jane Finn (overheard conversations were to become a Christie trademark) and events move rapidly from there, as they become unofficial secret service agents and set off on the track of a missing treaty that, if it falls into the wrong hands, may lead to a general strike and the overthrow of the government.

The producers cast two very good-looking actors as Tommy and Tuppence – James Warwick and Francesca Annis. Francesca Annis in particular performs her role with gusto: she really is one of my favourite tv stars. This pair later starred in a series based on the linked short stories featuring Tommy and Tuppence, Partners in Crime, which again I did not see at the time. My question to any of you who did watch it is: was it any good?

The supporting cast was excellent, including Peter Barkworth doing his usual reliable Englishman as the secret service supreme, Mr Carter, Toria Fuller (who seems to have ended her screen career prematurely, according to a quick search I made on the internet), and Alec McCowen. Oh, and George Baker plays a bad guy – yes, our own Inspector Wexford, who earlier in his career quite often took villainous roles that would be almost unthinkable today! All in all, this show was pleasant entertainment, and the twists in the story-line do give at least a hint of the skills that Christie went on to develop with such extraordinary single-mindedness.

The Charmer

The sole benefit of an enforced break has been the chance to watch a few DVDs I’ve never found time for in the endless rush of everyday life. And I really did admire The Charmer, an ITV series that I missed when it was first shown 22 years ago.

The Charmer is divided into six episodes, 50 minutes each, and features Nigel Havers cast successfully against type as Ralph Ernest Gorse. Havers is a light and likeable actor, but although Gorse has a good deal of superficial charm, in truth he is a cold and calculating sociopath, a man with no money but a burning desire to enjoy pleasures beyond his means.. He allows nothing and nobody to stand in his way.

At the start, Gorse sets his sight on an affluent widow with a fondness for drink, brilliantly played by Rosemary Leach. She is flattered by his attentions, provoking intense jealousy on the part of an unappealing estate agent called Donald Stimpson, equally well played by Bernard Hepton. Stimpson is infuriated when the woman who has fobbed him off for years sleeps with the glamorous younger man, and his determination to exact revenge on Gorse is a driving force of the story-line.

As the plot becomes increasingly complex and dark, Gorse seduces and marries the daughter of a rather thuggish Brighton car dealer played by George Baker – yes, Inspector Wexford himself! Gorse kills the girl, accidentally, while burning down their house in an insurance scam, but soon gets involved with another widow, played by Judy Parfitt. But Stimpson is on his trail…

The screenplay is by Allan Prior, who was involved with Troy Kennedy Martin (who died recently) in starting that seminal cop show Z Cars. (Trivia buffs might like to know his daughter is Maddy Prior, the singer from Steeleye Span.) The source material for the scripts was extracted from the books that Patrick Hamilton wrote about Gorse. The incidents in the books are somewhat different, but The Charmer is a real success, which can still be viewed with a great deal of pleasure a generation after it was made. Hamilton was a fascinating writer, by the way, and I’ll say more about him in future posts.

Profiling Ruth Rendell

ITV 3’s documentary about that marvellous writer Ruth Rendell was full of good things, including quite a bit from the lady herself. I agreed with Val McDermid’s observation that Rendell has a particular gift for delineating the psychology of ‘difference’. Many of her most memorable characters are rather strange individuals, but she has this knack of making them come alive. When I created Guy, the charming sociopath who features in The Arsenic Labyrinth, I was much influenced by Rendell, and I found the scenes featuring Guy enormously pleasurable to write.

The programme identified three types of Rendell novels – the Wexfords, the Rendell stand-alones and the books written under the name of Barbara Vine. There were interviews with George Baker, who played Wexford so well on the small screen (and who also adapted some of the books for television) and discussion about how Kingsmarkham (a fictional town based on Midhurst in Sussex) has evolved over the years. The Wexford stories highlighted were Simisola and Road Rage, and these books reflect Rendell’s more overt focus on social and political issues over the last fifteen years. Rendell evidently relishes her political life as a Labour peer, but I must say that the political elements in her more recent books don't appeal to mean as much as her brilliant insights into criminal psychology.

Rendell and P.D. James operate on opposite sides of the political divide, but their friendship shone through in their interviews, and struck me as absolutely genuine. They are both fine writers, who accord each other a very proper respect – and they are both shrewd enough to recognise that this may disappoint the media, who always prefer a story of conflict.

Another crime writer from the Conservative side, Gyles Brandreth, spoke warmly of Rendell’s work,although I was baffled by his dislike of her Barbara Vine books – the first few in particular are superb, and other interviewees, such as Andrew Taylor, were adamant that the Vine books include much of her very best work.

I was, though, disappointed that the programme didn’t pay any attention to the non-Wexford Rendells. Several of these are genuine masterpieces. And I still think that A Judgment in Stone is one of the most gripping novels of psychological suspense that I’ve ever read.