I liked some of the twists in this mystery. After reading some of the other reviews, I'll concede that Rendell doesn't tell us much about Wexford (the detective) - I felt comfortable with him because I've read so many of the Wexford mysteries and perhaps didn't notice how scant her descriptions were.It's was definitely the mystery itself (and its various subplots) that engaged me. I found the racism rather unpalatable, though. It's hard to believe that this was written only thirty years ago. The use of the words "inscrutable" and "slant-eyed," as well as writing 'l' for 'r' to make explicit someone's difficulty with English sounds, just in the first three pages, was a bit of a shock - it seemed more like a novel from the 1930s than from the '80s.
