THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 6, 1995 TAG: 9512060029
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY PEGGY DEANS EARLE
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
AT THE RISK of further exhausting the tired O.J. cliche, it can be said that in her latest mystery, Ruth Rendell deals her readers a race card. That the publication of ``Simisola'' (Crown, 327 pp., $23) so closely coincides with the Simpson trial's controversial verdict and divisive racial backlash is surely accidental.
But racial prejudice and violent death do appear in abundance in Rendell's 17th Inspector Wexford novel. So do a variety of social ills, including unemployment, sexual abuse, ageism and the evils of the ever present English class system.
Rather than translating these causes celebres into heavy-handed sermons, however, Rendell presents them logically, in another excellent police procedural from her dazzlingly fertile and sophisticated imagination. That same imagination has borne 16 popular psychological thrillers and seven gothic novels, these under her pseudonym, Barbara Vine.
But back to Wexford and his quaint English town of Kingsmarkham. In it, there are so few black inhabitants that when the daughter of African Dr. Akande disappears, the detective assumes she will be so conspicuous that finding her - dead or alive - will be a snap. But he comes to realize that this is just one of the many shortsighted preconceptions of which he is guilty.
The well-meaning, good-hearted Wexford admits both to himself and aloud, ``We're all racist in this country,'' yet he is shocked by his own insidious prejudice. Like the time when, while gazing at Mrs. Akande, he embarrassingly catches himself thinking: ``They always have these wonderful teeth. . . ''. Or his surprise that the Akandes' house looks just like anyone else's. But these revelations don't prevent Wexford from jumping to erroneous, even emotionally damaging conclusions about the absent daughter.
Wexford's consciousness is further expanded when his son-in-law, who has been laid off from his job, describes the degrading treatment he receives at the employment office.
The search for Melanie Akande takes Wexford to that same employment office, where she had been interviewed. The nature of his investigation turns ominous when Wexford discovers the interviewer, murdered. Is there a connection between this woman's death and Melanie's disappearance?
Soon after that, the battered body of a young black woman is found in a shallow grave. Wexford is sure his search is over. But the mystery is really just beginning. Typically, Rendell drives her readers directly down one path and then swerves, tires screeching, in a totally different direction. Things are rarely what they seem.
Occasionally, in the thick of this solid, fast-moving detective story, we are gently reminded that Wexford is a regular, very human human being. He's a father, deeply uncomfortable with his preference for one of his two daughters over the other. And he's a grandfather, understandably irritated by his grandson's habit of answering ``no problem'' to almost every question - in 50 different languages.
Above all, Wexford's a detective, aware that his profession, while it becomes more scientific, remains the most inexact of sciences. It revolves around human behavior - unpredictable, irrational and prejudiced.
With no apologies to Sherlock Holmes, Wexford observes:
``A pair of slippers with singed soles no more showed that their wearer had been suffering from a severe chill than that he had merely had cold feet. Nor could you deduce from a man's staring at a portrait on the wall that he was dwelling on the life and career of that portrait's subject, for he might equally be thinking how it resembled his brother-in-law or was badly painted or needed cleaning. With human nature you could only guess - and try to guess right.'' MEMO: Peggy Deans Earle is a staff librarian. by CNB