Ruth Rendell is one of those authors I sometimes have difficulty calling “Cozy.” There are a lot of elements to Rendell’s novels that don’t exactly fit into the “Cozy” mold as neatly as someone like Ngaio Marsh or Agatha Christie. Certainly her Inspector Wexford isn’t the typical Cozy sleuth – he’s a police inspector through and through, not an amateur who just happens to stumble into murder time and time again. Rendell even makes it a point to describe him as fitting into the mold the average person would imagine if asked to think of a police chief, at least by the standards of the day.
All that said, From Doon with Death is perhaps the Coziest of her novels that I can recall, and serves to show why I ultimately think her Inspector Wexford books can usually be considered… well, if not Cozy, at least somewhat Cozy-adjacent. The murder itself is quick, off-screen, and relatively painlessly conducted, while the backdrop of Kingsmarkham, England, feels very much like the comfortable Cozy settings we’re all familiar with. Old relationships are unearthed between most of the members of the cast of suspects, most of whom had made some attempt to distance themselves from the unfortunately departed.
That said, there are also elements present, even in From Doon with Death, that may certainly put off many Cozy-minded readers. However, these elements have mellowed somewhat with age, and what must have been considered ground-breaking at the time is no longer such a shock.
(As a side note, Rendell’s stand alone novels and the books she has written under the pseudonym Barbara Vine tend to veer a lot further from the standard Cozy mold, though like the Inspector Wexford series they are also very good books.)
If you’re interested in reading more of these brief revisits of some of the more popular Cozy Mystery Series that I’ve written in the past, you can find them at the Most Recommended Cozy Mystery Series page on my site.
Susan says
I’ve been rereading Rendell’s Wexford books also and they never disappoint.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Susan, I think they are terrific. She is such a phenomenal writer/story teller. You’re right: “they never disappoint.”
Stash Empress says
Oh wow — I read these soooooooooooooo many years ago! No, I wouldn’t call Rendell “cozy” at all.
Jackie J. Griffey says
I have enjoyed rereading some of my favorites too and as you say, they never disappoint – anyone who has ever ‘set foot in our house’ knows good books are an essential part of our lives. LOL. I’ve separated the ones I’ve had signed or sent by friends so I won’t forget and lend them out. LOL
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Jackie, that sounds like a terrific idea!
Tessa~ says
thank you!
I love re-reading a favorite, myself. thank you for sharing this one of yours, with us.
Tessa~
TXRed says
Ruth Rendell is master of seeing the darkness and twisted-ness inside ordinary peoples’ minds. One of my favorite of her books, not part of the Wexford series, is One Across, Two Down, which I’d call a cozy. Blah, ordinary Stanley gets his joy not from his wife and especially not his nasty mother-in-law, but from his garden and working the daily crossword puzzle in the newspaper. He is perhaps a genius at solving tough crosswords, relishing the obscure clues, and even creates his own complex puzzles in his mind as he does his mundane chores. If you haven’t read this Rendell, try it!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
TXRed, thank you for the recommendation. I love Ruth Rendell’s writing!
Donna Mc says
Wexford is one I will definitely be reading if I ever get caught up on the TBR pile! I have read many of Rendell’s short stories and truly enjoyed them, but for some reason never picked up one of the novels. She is a very good writer.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Donna Mc, for some reason, I prefer her Inspector Wexford mysteries. I don’t know why… Maybe I just have a thing for series.
TXRed says
I also prefer the Wexford series. I’d already read a few of them since the 80s but last year I started reading them in order and it’s interesting to see Inspector Wexford (and his supportive wife) age as the series progresses in time.
Anne says
It’s also interesting that Kingsmarkham changes over the years, not nesessarily for the better. Ruth Rendell always has her finger on the contemporary pulse. There’s nothing nostalgic about her writing.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
TXRed, the Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple books you almost don’t have to read chronologically. But you’re right about the Wexford series. The mysteries are definitely better in their correct order.
sandy says
hi,
I’ve read most of the Barbara Vine books — I think they’re amazing. So psychological. So filled with suspense and sheer terror. Such wonderful characterization.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Sandy, you’re not kidding! Her Barbara Vine books are full of “suspense and sheer terror”!
Rho says
Anyone else just counting the minutes until midnight and Louise Penny’s book arrives on Kindle? I have to go to sleep but can’t wait to read the newest one. She is one of my favorite writers; there are passages that bring tears to my eyes.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Rho, you must be in Seventh Heaven today!
Anne says
She is terriffic, a writer of the first order. I’ve read every single one of her books, both as Ruth Rendell and as Barbara Vine, and most of her short stories too. For me, she and P.D. James are the tops. (I think they are good friends too.)
Anne
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Anne, that’s interesting about P.D. James and Ruth Rendell being good friends! Thanks for telling us.
reginav says
Danna I have always loved Ruth Rendall’s Inspector Wexford’s series. I regarded them as cozy mysteries. Why? I do not know. Maybe they are not bloody and gory or just because they are British. Another series I feel that way about if Deborah Crombie and sometimes Susan Hill. WE could have a subdivision of cozy entitled British/ Police procedurals, but even some British books are too non cozy.
Anne says
yes, a lot of them are non cozy!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Regina, you might have hit upon the reason we tend to think of her books as non cozy.
Anne says
I’ve just read (actually just listened to on audio) a writer new to me – Aly Monroe -and would recomend it as a good read (or listen) It is “The Maze of Cadiz” and is the first of a series featuring Peter Cotton, a young British wartime agent/spy. It’s a Mystery story, not a thriller or wartime yarn, set in neutral Spain in 1944. Interesting characters, descriptions of Cadiz, and ruminations on it’s past, present and future, Lord Byron’s “Don Juan,” Franco, Spanish trains and lots more. Goes at a gentle pace, 2 dead bodies, 1 punch-up and 1 very sedate sex scene – but no gore, violence etc. She’s published 3 more in the series and I’m looking forward to reading them.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Anne, thanks for telling us about Aly Monroe’s Peter Cotton Mystery Series.
Robert says
“Certainly her Inspector Wexford isn’t the typical Cozy sleuth – he’s a police inspector through and through, not an amateur who just happens to stumble into murder time and time again”
Nice review – but I would say in response to this point that being an inspector rather than an amateur is no reason not to be a cosy. Inspector Morse was fairly cosy, so was Inspector Frost, and Inspector Barnaby, and Lieutenant Columbo. I definitely think Wexford was and so was at least the early Inspector Dalgliesh. In the cosy genre police inspectors greatly out-number amateur sleuths.
Amateurs worked better in the past but today no one would be prepared to be grilled by an amateur P.I., so they’re just not realistic, whereas an inspector fits into cosy perfectly and is believable. Cosies are unfairly criticised. In fact, they are the superior and purer form of the genre, not concerned with being a social lecture and focusing purely on the puzzle of the crime. It’s about time we stopped referring to cosies as such, which makes them look like a subsidiary branch of the genre, when in fact they were where it all started. They are detective fiction, and the later books should be a subsidiary branch called noir crime or something.
Thanks!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Robert, you are so right about Cozies being the starting point of all-things mystery. I love your third paragraph!
Anne says
I think the labels probably were invented by publishers. In most libraries I’ve used all kinds of detective fiction are gathered together in a section simply called “Crime.” I don’t think one sort is better than another, it depends on the writer and also the tastes of the reader. And it’s not always about a puzzle; it can be about why-they-dunnit rather than who-dun it and that can’t always be solved. Or it can be about the battle of wits between policeman and perpetrator as in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s great novel “Crime and Punishment.”
Interesting to think about anyway.