dickadler's Full Review: Ruth Rendell and Christopher Ravenscroft - Harm Do...
After 46 books, Ruth Rendell has certainly earned the right to fool
around a bit, to think out loud and let the bones of her
construction show. The last few pages of this, her 47th
published effort in a remarkable and justly-honored career, has
Chief Inspector Reg Wexford seriously considering no less than
four different solutions to the central question of who killed
a particularly brutal and sadistic wife-beater named Stephen
Devenish. Perhaps the time and pages spent before the arrival
of the obvious conclusion are intended to reinforce something
that happens earlier in the book, when Wexford's friend and
associate accuses him of becoming obsessive: "He was anxious
not to become obsessive, not to let a single not very important
case take over and dominate his mind. But he was also aware
that it is hard to alter one's nature, especially at his age.
This was the way he was, and to attempt a change would be a
violation of his character and not necessarily otherwise
advantageous." Because she has let us come to know Wexford so
fully in the course of dozens of fine mysteries, we are happy
to forgive Rendell this small and relatively unimportant
indulgence -- especially in a book full of other delights. Just
as Reg's wife Dora came into her own in the last Wexford novel,
Road Rage, their elder daughter, Sylvia, gets a chance to shine
in this one. The fact that her father has always favored her
prettier younger sister, a successful actress, even though he
tries hard to hide it, has made their relationship brittle. But
when her job as a social worker looking after battered women
suddenly becomes dangerous, Sylvia turns to her father for
comfort. "Misery and terror were succeeded by a great calm, a
warmth that spread through her like drinking something hot and
strong. She caught his hand and held it." Harm Done is also
enriched by many lyric descriptions of the English countryside,
especially its trees, and by a compassionate understanding of
how hard life can still be for women and children despite
society's best intentions.
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