Matthew Dennison

Fifty years of Inspector Wexford – and a new detective on the block

Ruth Rendell's The Girl Next Door is another quirky, satisfying mystery. But her fans have something else to celebrate

[Jerry Bauer] 
issue 16 August 2014

Early on in The Girl Next Door, Ruth Rendell gives the reader a sharp nudge. ‘Colin Quell had very little interest in people, what they might think, how they might act in the future.’ The novel is Rendell’s latest stand alone mystery, the uninterested Quell its detective inspector. Forcibly she announces that neither physically nor temperamentally is this Wexford territory.

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