Rendell denies killing off Inspector Wexford
Veteran detective still 'living and breathing', insists novelist
Alison Flood reporting in the guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 May 2009
Veteran detective still 'living and breathing', insists novelist
Alison Flood reporting in the guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 May 2009
Ruth Rendell. Photograph: Jane Mingay/Associated PressRuth Rendell has denied reports that she has written her last Inspector Wexford novel, insisting that the veteran investigator is alive and well and ready for more adventures.
A report in the Telegraph yesterday suggested that Rendell, 79, didn't want to write any more Wexford novels after this autumn's publication of The Monster in the Box, her 22nd mystery featuring Detective Chief Inspector Reg Wexford. But her longtime editor, Paul Sidey at Hutchinson, said this morning that Wexford was still "living and breathing".
"I was rather surprised to hear the news, and having just spoken to Ruth she said nothing of the kind," he said. "So on it goes. I'm in my 27th year as her editor and I'd be very disappointed to lose Reggie from my life."
The Monster in the Box is published this October and casts a new light on the diligent inspector who first appeared in Rendell's 1964 debut From Doon with Death, seeing him grapple with an unsolved mystery from his past when the suspected killer returns to Kingsmarkham. Rendell also depicts Wexford's courtship of the woman who would later become his wife.
"It does reframe the Wexford story. You see him in his early years as a young policeman, meeting his wife-to-be. It's quite clever the way she's used a contemporary story and framed it with something which happened in his early years. It gives another view on the whole Wexford story," said Sidey.
Rendell, who also writes as Barbara Vine, is the author of more than 70 books, a four-time winner of the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger for Fiction award, the recipient of a CBE and in 1997 of a lifetime peerage.
A report in the Telegraph yesterday suggested that Rendell, 79, didn't want to write any more Wexford novels after this autumn's publication of The Monster in the Box, her 22nd mystery featuring Detective Chief Inspector Reg Wexford. But her longtime editor, Paul Sidey at Hutchinson, said this morning that Wexford was still "living and breathing".
"I was rather surprised to hear the news, and having just spoken to Ruth she said nothing of the kind," he said. "So on it goes. I'm in my 27th year as her editor and I'd be very disappointed to lose Reggie from my life."
The Monster in the Box is published this October and casts a new light on the diligent inspector who first appeared in Rendell's 1964 debut From Doon with Death, seeing him grapple with an unsolved mystery from his past when the suspected killer returns to Kingsmarkham. Rendell also depicts Wexford's courtship of the woman who would later become his wife.
"It does reframe the Wexford story. You see him in his early years as a young policeman, meeting his wife-to-be. It's quite clever the way she's used a contemporary story and framed it with something which happened in his early years. It gives another view on the whole Wexford story," said Sidey.
Rendell, who also writes as Barbara Vine, is the author of more than 70 books, a four-time winner of the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger for Fiction award, the recipient of a CBE and in 1997 of a lifetime peerage.
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