Wexford’s First Case Returns
Review of the Doubleday Canada Kindle eBook edition (December 15, 2009) of the original Hutchinson (UK) hardcover (early 2009).

First put the monster in the box, he thought. Throw the box away – but he couldn’t do that, it was the monster he had to think about.

Chief Inspector Wexford re-encounters Erik Targo, a man from his past who has returned to Kingsmarkham after an absence of many years. Back when Wexford was a junior member of the police force, he had suspected Targo of being a murderer without having any proof. That obsession now returns and Wexford is advised to use a psychological trick to put that "monster into a box" in order to not think about it. But Wexford is determined to finally bring Targo to justice at last.

This case was more interesting for the look back at Wexford's early years and love affairs prior to his meeting his future wife Dora. The resolution of the Erik Targo case itself was rather unsatisfactory. The novel also has a rather tiresome subplot of Detective Constable Hannah Goldsmith & Inspector Burden's wife Jenny meddling in the affairs of a local Muslim family whom they suspect of a possible enforced marriage of their daughter.

Monster in a Box continues my 2023/24 binge read / re-read of Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford series and this is the 22nd out of a total 24 books. I had to skip over Wexford #15 to #18 as I haven’t been able to source them yet.

See cover at https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/...
Cover image for the original Scribner (US) hardcover edition from 2009. Image sourced from Goodreads..

Wexford's Laws
There were no Wexford’s Laws in this book. Wexford’s Laws are occasional thoughts about quirky observations made by the Chief Inspector for which he assigns a number. But... teaser warning... there are 4 Wexford's Laws in the next book The Vault at which point either Wexford or perhaps author Rendell has lost count, saying it is now up to the 17th or the 18th Law.

Other Reviews
Is this policeman prescient or paranoid? by Robert A. Rood, WordPress, February 15, 2010.

Trivia and no Link
The Monster in the Box was not adapted for television as part of the Ruth Rendell / Inspector Wexford Mysteries TV series (1987-2000) as the novel was published after the series had ended. ( )

2023 - 06

Wexford nº 22, que he leído en francés porque los tres últimos Wexford no están traducidos al español.

Este parte de una base curiosa, un supuesto crimen perfecto que Wexford nunca pudo demostrar en su juventud, que vuelve en su vejez. Este presupuesto es pretexto para conocer a Wexford joven y leer historias de su vida cuando entró en la policía y todavía no estaba casado con Dora. Esta parte está bien, pero el pretexto está bastante traído por los pelos y no tiene mucho sentido.

Se lee a gusto porque siempre está bien saber cosas de un personaje que nos atrae, y las que se cuentan son significativas e interesantes, pero el tema del asesino en serie no tiene ni pies ni cabeza. Lo de siempre, bien está que nos hagan suspender la incredulidad, yo siempre estoy abierta, pero las cosas tienen un límite.

Ya solo me quedan dos Wexford.

don't enjoy ruth RENDELL. won't read her again. ( )

The Monster in the Box (2009) is the twenty-second book in Ruth Rendell’s twenty-four-book Inspector Wexford series. The Wexford books were published over an almost-fifty-year period (1964-2013), so there is a noticeable shift in style and character development in the Wexford books as they progress over the years. The earlier books have a bit of an old-fashioned feel to them today, and Wexford and his cohorts do not always feel particularly real. This is particularly noticeable to me, I suppose, because I have just read the fourth Wexford novel, The Best Man to Die (1969), and The Monster in the Box almost back-to-back.

As it turns out, The Monster in the Box is my favorite of the fifteen Wexford novels I have read so far. Not only does the plot involve two intriguing mysteries that need solving, one of the mysteries (because it involves a man Wexford has believed to be a murderer for decades) allows Rendell to show what kind of young policeman, and man, Wexford had been at the very beginning of his career. Much of the book involves Wexford contrasting, mainly to himself, all the cultural changes that he’s observed during his long career without, I think, realizing just how much he himself has changed over the years. And that limited self-awareness on Wexford’s part will serve as the perfect set-up for the little surprise that Rendell throws into the end of this one.

It was while investigating his very first murder case that Wexford first encountered the muscular little man wearing a scarf and walking his dog along the street outside the victim’s home. The man seemed intent on sending Wexford a message by staring so unflinchingly directly into Wexford’s eyes before he continued his walk past the home. When Wexford began running into the man so often, sometimes near the scenes of other murders, he began to feel that this Eric Targo was toying with him, almost daring him to prove Targo’s guilt if he could. And then the man disappeared.

Now, after all these years, Wexford spots Targo on the streets again, and even though he has never mentioned his suspicions to anyone before, he decides now to share his fears with his old partner, Mike Burden - who listens patiently, but just isn’t buying Wexford’s theory much at all. About the same time, Burden’s wife starts to worry that a local Pakistani family may be in the process of arranging the forced marriage of — if not even the honor killing — of Tamima, their teenaged daughter who has been seeing a boy they do not approve of. In what begins as simply a favor to his partner’s wife, Wexford assigns someone to look into what is happening in the Rahman family, but when it turns out that no one in Tamima’s extended family can account for the girl’s current whereabouts, the police start wondering if they are searching for a corpse instead of a girl who may have been forced into an unwanted marriage.

Bottom Line: The Monster in the Box ticks all the right boxes. Longtime fans of the Wexford novels are certain to enjoy such an extended look at Wexford’s early years as he reminisces about his first girlfriends and what he learned from those relationships. The two mysteries are interesting, and they come complete with all the twists and turns that mystery readers enjoy so much. Then, when the two plots begin more and more to intertwine (as they almost always do in mysteries), the climax that follows is a completely satisfying one — especially with that little surprise Rendell tosses her readers at the very end. Too, watching the Kingsmarkham police tiptoe around the Rahmans, a Muslim family, in an attempt not to offend them even while suspecting them of a possible murder, is a reminder of how difficult it is to walk the fine line of political correctness these days — and this novel was written a dozen years ago. In the end, the Rahman family was more offended by all the tiptoeing around than anything else. ( )

I have not read the Wexford mysteries in order, but just read them as I found them. This one seems different in some ways from the others I have read, and even seems like a winding down of the series. Which, in a way, it is. Only two more were written after this.

Wexford decides to tell his partner, Mike Burden, about his obsession with a man he has thought about for years. The man, Eric Targo, first grabbed Wexford's attention at the time of the murder of a young wife. She was strangled and her husband was suspected of the crime. Nevertheless, because of the way Targo had behaved around Wexler, he came to think Targo had actually killed her.

Targo appeared to be stalking Wexler. He showed up at odd times, not consistent with where he himself lived, with a dog on a leash. He would look into the window where Wexford was sitting and give him a stare that as much as said, "I did it and I will get away with it". Wexford could find no evidence connecting the man to the crime but he remained convinced that he was responsible.

Targo continued to haunt him, both in his mind and physically, except when he moved from the area. Over the years Wexford saw him at the times of different murders, always strangulations. It even seemed that Targo wanted Wexford to think he had committed some murders that he couldn't have.

This obsession with the "monster" that was Targo stayed with Wexler through his career, yet he told nobody. He knew there was no point without evidence. Yet finally he decides to tell Burden. Little by little, through the book, he reveals his thoughts, knowing Burden will likely not believe his conclusions. But that's okay.

While Wexler is trying to find ways to bring Targo to justice, Burden's wife raises a concern about one of her pupils, Tamima. The sixteen-year-old Muslim had earned high scores in school and was a prime candidate for higher schooling at a good university. But she now is saying she wants to stop. No school, just get a job. Jenny, Burden's wife, thinks there may be something going on at home that is keeping Tamima from going further with her education. Are her parents going to force her into a marriage? Are they keeping her from seeing her boyfriend?

Wexler assigns Hannah Goldsmith to the case, given her commitment to fair treatment for all, an anti-racist position that sometimes caused her to pull her hair out in trying to negotiate her beliefs about feminism with various culture mores. Hannah pursues the case with gusto while Wexler and Burden try to stay out of it.

There is more to the novel than the pursuit of a possible serial killer and the behavior of a sixteen-year-old. We learn much more about Wexler's early dating life and his meeting of his present wife. In fact, a great deal of the book fills in details of Wexler's earlier life and gives us more of him as a person.

As in other Rendell novels, this one excels in its details, both about events and about persons. Rendell gives us whole people and backstories, seems to revel in the side story at times. I found it a great pleasure to read.
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