No Man's Nightingale: An Inspector Wexford Novel Hardcover - 2013

From crime legend Ruth Rendell, the gripping new novel in her âÈêbelovedâÈë (USA Today) Inspector Wexford series, which will soon mark its fiftieth anniversary

A female vicar named Sarah Hussain is discovered strangled in her Kingsmarkham vicarage. Maxine, the gossipy cleaning woman who finds the body, happens to also be in the employ of former Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford and his wife. When called on by his old deputy, Wexford, who has taken to reading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as a retirement project, leaps at the chance to tag along with the investigators. Wexford is intrigued by the unusual circumstances of the murder, but heâÈçs also desperate to escape the chatty Maxine.

A single mother to a teenage girl, Hussain was a woman working in a male-dominated profession. Of mixed race and an outspoken church reformer, she had turned some in her congregation against her, including the conservative vicarâÈçs warden. Could one of her enemies in the church have gone so far as to kill her? Or could it have been the elderly next-door gardener with a muddled alibi?

As Wexford searches the vicarâÈçs house alongside the police, he sees a book, NewmanâÈçs Apologia Pro Vita Sua, lying on HussainâÈçs bedside table. Inside it is a letter serving as a bookmark. Without thinking much, Wexford puts it into his pocket. Wexford soon realizes he has made a grave errorâÈ'heâÈçs removed a piece of evidence from the crime scene. Yet what he finds inside begins to illuminate the murky past of Sarah Hussain. Is there more to her than meets the eye?

No ManâÈçs Nightingale is Ruth RendellâÈçs masterful twenty-fourth installment in one of the great crime series of all time.

Details

• Title No Man's Nightingale: An Inspector Wexford Novel
• Author Ruth Rendell
• Binding Hardcover
• Edition INTERNATIONAL ED
• Pages 288
• Volumes 1
• Language ENG
• Publisher Scribner Book Company, New York
• Date 2013-11-05
• ISBN 9781476744483 / 1476744483
• Weight 0.98 lbs (0.44 kg)
• Dimensions 9 x 6 x 1.1 in (22.86 x 15.24 x 2.79 cm)
• Library of Congress subjects Mystery fiction, Sussex (England)
• Library of Congress Catalog Number 2013020075
• Dewey Decimal Code FIC

"A novel by Ruth Rendell is like none other..... The results are seldom what we expect them to be, and that is part of this author's special genius."