Harm Done
The eighteenth Wexford novel published by Hutchinson in 1999
Rendell’s observations on social issues like adolescent rebellion and domestic violence are both perceptive and unnerving, and they cut across the class divide. So do the problematical questions she raises about civil disobedience and vigilante justice. Although she gives her moral endorsement to Wexford, a decent man who can see and even agonize over “the paradox of the innocent victim declared guilty and the ruthless perpetrator emerging guiltless,” she has great compassion for desperate people who act from the best intentions and somehow manage to do the most devastating damage.
Two young girls disappear and then return home unharmed some days later. Chief Inspector Wexford is concerned about a paedophile who has recently been released back into the community, but he cannot foresee the series of serious crimes waiting to happen.
Notes
In the book’s final sentence, Wexford takes his daughter’s hand and tells her:
There’s no harm done
. Similarly, in The Tempest, Prospero attempts to reassure his daughter with the following words:Be collected: No more amazement: tell your piteous heart, there’s no harm done.
Women’s Aid is a national charity working to end domestic violence against women and children in the UK.
Ruth Rendell - A Life in Crime. A profile presented by Harriett Gilbert.
First adapted for TV in 2000.
Contemporary Reads 2
Robert Wilson - A Small Death in Lisbon
Michael Dibdin - Blood Rain
Val McDermid - A Place of Execution
J. M. Coetzee - Disgrace
Sarah Waters - Affinity
Åke Edwardson - Sun and Shadow
Footnotes
New York Times, 1999. ↩︎
Book links may earn this site a small commission. ↩︎