THE BEST MAN TO DIE. [Hardcover]

Ruth. Rendell (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Garden City: Doubleday,; First U.S. edition. edition (1970)
• ASIN: B002D833MY
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic Inspector Wexfield, February 9, 2002

By 

Nancy Trease (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Best Man to Die (Chief Inspector Wexford Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

This particular Rendell mystery is loveable for its credible character development and Rendell's unique ability to convey life in the English countryside. If, like me, you have followed every detail in the life of Wexford and his sidekick Burden you shouldn't miss this one. The plot is classic Rendell: complexity with credibility and writing as smooth as silk. She's so easy to read you may overlook her expertise. One of the best living authors and thankfully prolific!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Inspector Wexford Outing: Two Cases Intersect, August 13, 2007

By 

John F. Rooney - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Best Man to Die (Chief Inspector Wexford Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

Ruth Rendell has twenty Detective Chief Inspector Wexford crime novels in her arsenal, and this was number four in the series. Wexford is a big, heavy man, not particularly good looking, happily married, who has one plain Jane daughter and a stunning one who is a famous stage actress. Rendell never really brings the wife to life; she's just there. Wexford is a conventional guy, not a boozer like many British police detectives. He spars with his sidekick, the prosaic Inspector Burden.

This mystery is built around the intense friendship between two working class men. One of them is a dodgy little lorry driver who has too much money for a man in his pay grade. Two police cases intersect: one is a murder and the other a highway accident with fatalities. Wexford goes about the job of interviewing witnesses thinking, "If only they knew that to him their revelations were but bricks in the house he was trying to build, rungs on the ladder of discovery..."

If you're alert, you can figure out fairly early on who the murderer is and what the connection is between the two cases. It's a well-told tale with insights into British life and the class system. Rendell keeps your interest with some flinty characters, interesting details embedded in the story, and a vivid town setting. Her characters often are unlikable, but there is a feeling of reality that comes across. These aren't stick figures or stereotypes--now if only she could breathe life and personality into Wexford's spouse. Not the best of the Wexford series in subtlety and grace, but with a few flashes of humor, it does nicely as an introduction to the series.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My continual rantings about Rendell must be getting tiresome, March 17, 2004

By 

RachelWalker "RachelW" (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Best Man to Die (Chief Inspector Wexford Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

As I'm lazy, I'm just going to copy out the official blurb (plus, I can't say it any better):

Jack Pertwee was getting married in the morning.

Charlie Hatton drove his lorry eleven hours down from Leeds just to be there. Charlie was Jack's best friend and he would be his best man. When the two parted at the Kingsbrook bridge, jack felt as though his life was just beginning. But for Charlie Hatton, life was about to end.

Detective Chief Inspector Wexford wondered why the fatal Fanshawe car accident kept upsetting his concentration on the Hatton murder. There couldn't be a connection. Fanshawe had been a wealthy stockbroker, Charlie Hatton a cocky little lorry driver with some illegal dealing.

But was it just a coincidence that Hatton had been killed on the day following that of Mrs Fanshawe's regaining consciousness?

On first read, several years ago when I was about 12, this book didn't strike me as one of the greatest Wexford's. On re-reading it, my estimation is much, much improved. The Best Man to Die is another excellent Wexford novel from Rendell's early period. It doesn't have the wonderful, vicious darkness of Wolf to the Slaughter or the unique quality of Some Lie or Some Die, but it remains a very very excellent and clever mystery that will likely confound even the most practiced of crime-fiction readers. It did me, even though I had read it before! I could remember, just about, who, but for the life of me I had no idea why, until Rendell revealed all in one of those excellent last-revelation chapters that she does so so well.

At this point in the series, neither Wexford nor Burden had begun to fully develop quite yet; primarily these early books are plot novels and character foible novels. Still, Wexford is certainly beginning to show hints of how interesting he is, and his family life begins to take on the wonderful life it does later in the series. Here, actually, Wexford seems slightly out-of-character; he's less patient, possibly. Less tolerant perhaps? Certainly, he wasn't quite as warm as in many of the other books, but his skills as a detective are borne out wonderfully in an excellent mystery.

The Best Man to Die (again, one of Rendell's treasures that have been left out of print. I doubt you'll be able to get this anywhere except second-hand) is a great, impeccably written mystery. Rendell dissects her characters motivations marvellously. I would recommend this, of course, very highly indeed, but I don't think it's really the place to begin reading Wexford.