Mostly Harmless (Harm Done - Ruth Rendell)

Member Name: Daisybelle

Product:	Harm Done - Ruth Rendell
Date:	25/08/01 (97 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good contemporary writer

Disadvantages: Not the best mystery writer on the go

Ah, Ruth Rendell, part of the staple diet for British lovers of Crime Fiction novels and television. Yes? Well not for me. For some reason I’ve never read any of her books or seen any of the adaptions, so “Harm done” was to be a first. Ruth Rendell, it turns out, is pretty good in many respects, but in others strangely lacking. I’ll probably read more books by her, but in truth wouldn’t be deeply saddened if it didn’t happen.

On the mystery front she is competent, but certainly not in the same league as, say, Elizabeth George, P.D. James or Ian Rankin. This is compensated for though, by her grasp of the socio-political zeitgeists (Sheesh, that sounds pretentious) that are prevalent in the UK. That said, she isn’t particularly subtle about getting her messages across, which implied to me some sort of superiority complex.

Her characterisations are mixed. Many of the suspects and bit part players come across as real people, of Wexford and his cohorts however, little is revealed. Apart from the fact that he’s overweight, I know disappointingly little more of our Reg than I did at the beginning. Maybe this has something to do with the book being her 18th Wexford novel though. I suppose repeated characterisations of Wexford would be rather boring if you’d read them all. To my mind, her worst point by far is the meandering strings of adjectives she tends to go off into. Ten confusing lines to describe a chair or another item of furniture is just not necessary, especially when her dialogues and the crime related prose are clear and to the point. Fortunately she doesn’t do this too often though.

Having said that, the luvvies love her. Strangely, accolades from Patricia Cornwell and Scott Turow are included in the adulation list. Cornwell, who I find repetitive, obsessive and limited says “The most brilliant mystery novelist of our time” Mm, well Pat, whatever you think. T
urow describes it as “Distinguished literature”, well she can certainly keep a big picture going, but I thought this a little over the top.

So what’s it about? Well, initially its missing girls, although this is really a subplot, another of Rendells’ good points as there are plots within plots within plots going on here. The two very different missing girls, Lizzie and Rachel, are abducted and released, after being given Rohypnol. We then have a paedophile introduced into the community, and all the problems, including lynch mobs that this brings. There are battered women in abundance, and this is the central theme of the novel. Not only is one of the central characters a victim of abuse, but Sylvia, Wexfords’ least favourite daughter (I couldn’t understand why Rendell seems to obsess about this, maybe her Dad didn’t like her?) is working in a women’s’ refuge, and we hear plenty from there. Rendell also attempts to explore the psychology of abuse, and to a degree it works. I found it a bit to overt and clumsy for my liking though, but that’s not to say she’s necessarily bad at it.

Murder is the most serious crime to be committed, though we are not left in much doubt that it’s not the most serious issue Rendell is writing about. Going further into the murders would be to expose a good piece of the plot, so I’ll leave them there. The town of Kingsmarkham in which the story is set is described very well, and the mental pictures she drew for me were well received. What let the picture down a little were the dialogues of the residents. Rendell is trying to write about the suburban wing of the so-called emerging underclass here, yet they all speak like I imagine country people in the 1950s did. No swearing apart from the occasional “bloody”, along with rather impressive vocabularies just don’t tie in well with her otherwise excellent ability to keep things co
ntemporary.

Also an interesting theme I picked up on that seemed to have escaped the critics beady, if adulating, eyes, was parental relationships. The number of parent-child relationships that Rendell looks at in some depth is into double figures. I’m not sure what point she is trying to make, although the book is in many respects about children, but each of these relationships makes for an interesting microcosm.

As far as the crime writing aspect of her work goes, as I said before I don’t think she’s the best British mystery writer on the go by a long shot. The other aspects of her crime writing are better though; her feel for the underlying direction that crime is heading in is impressive. There are a number of red herrings, one glaringly implausible, another incredibly plausible and others somewhere in between. Not being a big fan of the red herring, this didn’t get me too excited, but if it’s your thing you should be delighted with this aspect of the book.

Overall this is a fairly good read. 3 1/2 is my rating really, and at £5.99 for 460 or so pages its fairly good value for money. I got it from the library, so it was free. I’d advise anyone that fancies it to do the same. In fact, I’d recommend getting all your books from the library. I read over 100 library books a year, so that pretty much justifies most of my council tax;-)

Summary: