Road Rage
The seventeenth Wexford novel published by Hutchinson in 1997
When Dora is kidnapped, I think readers see a side of Wexford that they perhaps hadn’t seen before. That is his passionate devotion to his wife. He is horrified by what has happened to her, and I’m rather proud of his rescue of her, and the scene between them when she comes home.
A bypass is planned in Kingsmarkham that would destroy its peace and natural habitat forever. Wexford’s wife Dora joins the protest movement, but Wexford must be more circumspect. Trouble is expected.
When he was young he had seen blue fritillaries here, plants so localized that they were seen only within a ten-mile radius of Kingsmarkham, but that was a long time ago. When I retire, he had told his wife, I want to live in London so that I can’t see the countryside destroyed.
Before the protesters even have a chance to make their presence felt, the badly decomposed body of a young woman is discovered. Just as Wexford is about to investigate the murder, several people disappear - including Dora Wexford.
Notes
The Newbury Bypass Campaign: an archive and timeline.
Road Rage was adapted for TV by George Baker in 1998.
Ruth entered the House of Lords in the first list of Labour Peers after the 1997 UK election. She took the title Baroness Rendell of Babergh, a recognition of her beloved Suffolk.
Contemporary Reads 2
Karin Fossum - He Who Fears the Wolf
Ian Rankin - Black And Blue
Jeffery Deaver - The Bone Collector
Val McDermid - The Wire in the Blood
Anita Diamant - The Red Tent
P.D. James - A Certain Justice