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father when younger, since she has the motive for hating him. Wexford baits a trap for Sara, using her half-sister
Veronica, and it emerges that it was these two "women" (in the eyes of ARRIA) who had been meeting secretly for months. Sara is a fantasist who had used the excuse of warning Veronica against her father to dominate her and had then used her as an accomplice in helping dispose of Williams' body once she had murdered him.
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families. One girl mentions to
Wexford that it was not true that the two families did not know of each other since she had seen "those two women" together months before. However, intensive interviewing of Joy and Wendy Williams brings no confession, although the murder weapon is discovered plastered into a redecorated wall in Wendy’s living room.
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Things become more complicated when a number of young men are stabbed by teenaged girls belonging to a radical feminist group called ARRIA, whose logo is a human-headed raven. This has a large following in the local girls' schools, including those attended by relatives and friends of the two
Williams
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Inspector
Wexford is asked to look into the disappearance of his Kingsmarkham neighbour, Rodney Williams. Since Joy Williams is dowdy, Wexford assumes at first that her middle-aged husband has simply left her for someone younger and more attractive. Three weeks later, when Williams' abandoned car is
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After an ARRIA member whom he has interviewed is discovered strangled in the garden of the house where they hold their meetings, Wexford finally realises that someone in the group must have been involved in the
Williams murder. His suspicion turns to Sara Williams, who claims she was raped by her
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It eventually emerges that
Williams was a bigamist who had been dividing his time between one home in Kingsmarkham and a second in the neighbouring town of Pomfret. Years before, he had married sixteen-year old Wendy there and now has a fifteen-year-old daughter Veronica, in addition to the
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found the story a "disappointment" because "Rendell overdoes just about everything here". It also commented on the "often-dated feminist themes". Ruth
Rendell later reported in an interview with Anthea Davey for
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eighteen-year-old Sara in his other home in
Kingsmarkham. The two wives only find out about each other after Williams' body is discovered in a shallow grave. He has died from multiple stab wounds.
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found vandalised in a nearby town and the suitcase of clothes he had left home with is discovered in a field pool, Wexford starts to suspect that there may have been a murder.
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The convoluted plot and particularly the portrayal of the radical feminist teenagers was deprecated by some reviewers.
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and as a result "I was described by one women's magazine as the greatest anti-feminist since
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205:. First published in 1985, it is the 13th in her series featuring
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This article is about the 1985 book. For the
Scottish film, see
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The novel was later dramatised for television as part of
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that she had "had a go at dotty militant feminism" in
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266:in November 1990 and has since been repeated.
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201:is a murder mystery by British crime-writer
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970:British novels adapted into films
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298:Confessions of a Crime Writer”
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25:Murder mystery by Ruth Rendell
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453:Kissing the Gunner's Daughter
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975:Hutchinson (publisher) books
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938:The Barbara Vine Mysteries
931:The Ruth Rendell Mysteries
264:The Ruth Rendell Mysteries
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811:The Chimney Sweeper's Boy
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674:Adam and Eve and Pinch Me
548:The Secret House of Death
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980:Inspector Wexford series
383:A Guilty Thing Surprised
29:An Unkindness of Ravens
18:The Unkindness of Ravens
856:Short story collections
534:To Fear a Painted Devil
439:An Unkindness of Ravens
432:The Speaker of Mandarin
253:An Unkindness of Ravens
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198:An Unkindness of Ravens
174:The Speaker of Mandarin
965:Novels by Ruth Rendell
723:The Saint Zita Society
660:The Keys to the Street
632:Talking to Strange Men
502:The Monster in the Box
397:Murder Being Once Done
804:The Brimstone Wedding
783:King Solomon's Carpet
667:A Sight for Sore Eyes
481:The Babes in the Wood
404:Some Lie and Some Die
369:Wolf to the Slaughter
839:The Birthday Present
797:No Night is Too Long
590:The Lake of Darkness
576:A Judgement in Stone
562:The Face of Trespass
555:One Across, Two Down
516:No Man's Nightingale
362:A New Lease of Death
355:From Doon with Death
960:1985 British novels
769:The House of Stairs
716:Tigerlily's Orchids
688:Thirteen Steps Down
411:Shake Hands Forever
376:The Best Man to Die
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892:The Copper Peacock
885:The New Girlfriend
864:The Fallen Curtain
755:A Dark-Adapted Eye
730:The Girl Next Door
702:The Water's Lovely
653:The Crocodile Bird
597:Master of the Moor
583:Make Death Love Me
569:A Demon in My View
526:Stand-alone novels
390:No More Dying Then
40:First edition (UK)
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906:Piranha to Scurfy
846:The Child's Child
762:A Fatal Inversion
611:The Tree of Hands
425:Put on By Cunning
345:Inspector Wexford
207:Inspector Wexford
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115:Publication place
68:Inspector Wexford
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825:The Blood Doctor
604:The Killing Doll
541:Vanity Dies Hard
495:Not in the Flesh
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149:0-09-160200-9
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110:15 April 1985
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83:Mystery novel
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899:Blood Lines
818:Grasshopper
790:Asta's Book
776:Gallowglass
646:Going Wrong
625:Heartstones
954:Categories
709:Portobello
618:Live Flesh
270:References
248:Red Pepper
93:Hutchinson
923:TV series
695:The Thief
509:The Vault
474:Harm Done
467:Road Rage
234:Reactions
128:Hardcover
89:Publisher
460:Simisola
163:59083767
56:Language
126:Print (
59:English
347:novels
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138:269 pp
64:Series
46:Author
135:Pages
79:Crime
75:Genre
213:Plot
157:OCLC
144:ISBN
100:(US)
95:(UK)
259:".
70:#13
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81:/
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20:.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
