The Monster in the Box

Categories: Mystery & Suspense , Fiction

Ruth Rendell writes both intense psychological suspense novels and a traditional British police procedural mystery series. I have to confess that I can’t take the psychothrillers (some written under the name Barbara Vine), since I really don’t want to enter the mind of a serial killer, thank you. I prefer her Inspector Wexford mysteries.

But what I like most about the new Wexford novel, The Monster in the Box, is its odd little psychological twist on a serial killer plot.

Wexford sees a man get out of a van and cross the road, and it’s a man with whom he has a long though unacknowledged history. The man, Eric Targo, stared at him outside a murder scene years before; he walked his dog near Wexford’s windows; he nodded at him across the bar.

And these tiny connections over a long and relatively uneventful span of years have convinced Wexford that the man is a multiple murderer.

Of course, Wexford has never really told anyone about this—hints to his colleagues have been met with more than skepticism. On what basis could Wexford possibly suspect Targo has committed a series of murders? But Wexford believes it—and believes that Targo wants him to know it.

Now there’s another murder, one close to Wexford himself. Targo, however, has gone missing. So has a young Pakistani girl, the sister of the computer expert Targo was visiting the day Wexford saw him in the road. Is there a connection between any of these events? Can Wexford find any proof? And will anyone find the girl?

The clever setup will plunge you right into this intriguing novel. I don’t think you need to have read the Wexford series to follow it, so see what Rendell makes of her interesting premise.