An Unkindness of Ravens
The thirteenth Wexford novel published by Hutchinson in 1985
I had a go at dotty militant feminism. I have sympathy and support for feminism. If you’re a woman, you must be a feminist. But at the time there were women who didn’t want anything to do with men. They wanted them to die out and to use sperm banks. I was described by one women’s magazine as the greatest anti-feminist since Dashiell Hammett.
Rodney Williams’s disappearance seems typical to Wexford - a simple case of a man running off with a woman other than his wife. But when another woman reports that her husband is missing, the case turns unpleasantly complex.
Notes
Wexford searches Smith’s Classical Dictionary and discovers that ARRIA was named after Arria, the wife of Aulus Caecina Paetus, a Roman senator who conspired against the emperor Claudius.
Shortlisted for best novel at the Edgars.
Adapted for TV in 1990.
Jake Kerridge discusses the best of Ruth Rendell to read, watch and listen to.
Contemporary Reads 2
Jeannette Winterson - Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid’s Tale
Peter Ackroyd - Hawksmoor
Sara Paretsky - Killing Orders
Patrick Süskind - Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Ellis Peters - An Excellent Mystery