End in tears /

A rich cast of characters makes up for the mechanical plot in Rendell's twentieth Chief Inspector Wexford mystery, starring the shrewd, grandfatherly detective and his handsome, considerably younger sidekick, Burden. As the novel opens, teenage mother Amber Marshalson has been found bludgeoned to death by the side of a rural English road (the killer, as it turns out, twice tried to end her life, first dropping a lump of concrete onto a silver car he had mistaken for hers). Soon after, a young, pregnant acquaintance of Amber is murdered. The suspects are numerous: a pair of peculiar twins; a heavily pierced and tattooed boyfriend; a thin, hooded figure seen lurking in the nearby woods. Meanwhile, Inspector Wexford has problems of his own; his daughter, Sylvia, has agreed to be the surrogate mother for her ex-husband's new wife. Prolific three-time Edgar winner Rendell (who also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine) proves a master at rendering the joys and sorrows of human relationships, from amicable marriages to the cruel practice of preying on sterile women desperate to have children. --Allison Block Copyright 2006 Booklist

Bestseller Rendell's riveting new novel in her Chief Inspector Wexford series (The Babes in the Wood, etc.) links two disparate worlds-a child-surrogacy ring and the construction trade. A teenage mother, Amber Marshalson, is found dead in the grass outside her home in Kingsmarkham, her skull crushed by a piece of brick. A short time later, Amber's pregnant friend, Megan Bartlow, turns up murdered in a seedy, about-to-be-rehabbed Victorian row house. Suspicions center on a tall man wearing a hooded fleece jacket. Against this sinister backdrop stands Wexford, who's in lion-in-winter mode. He's irked and perplexed by modern life, by the casual way young girls conceive babies, by the sprawl devouring the once-lush Sussex countryside, even by his own fractious family. But he never loses the anger and dedication that propel him to solve crimes and understand evil. While Rendell fans may find this not quite up to the level of her most recent non-Wexford, Thirteen Steps Down (2005), they should be well satisfied. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Whether writing as Barbara Vine or under her own name, Rendell (Thirteen Steps Down) is an icon in the mystery-writing genre. With more than 50 novels to her credit, she shows no signs of slowing down or losing her touch. In this, her 20th Chief Inspector Wexford mystery, Rendell lays out a complex story of murder in which maternal instinct goes awry. From two seemingly unrelated deaths to an intricate scam promising surrogacy services to hopeful parents, the plot is so complicated (and sometimes happenstance) that even the detectives in the story don't get it until the all-knowing Wexler explains it to them. Rendell continues to amaze with her ability to tie together seemingly unrelated plot lines and throw readers off. The tone is typically no-nonsense, with only a few token side trips into the personal lives of the protagonists. Rendell (and Wexford) fans will enjoy this latest offering, provided they can keep the impressively large cast of characters sorted out. Recommended for all public libraries. Caroline Mann, Univ. of Portland Lib., OR (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Inspector Reginald Wexford's 20th case, and Rendell's 64th volume, asks who murdered a pair of Kingsmarkham teens no better than they should have been. Last June, a hooded figure tried to kill 18-year-old mother Amber Marshalson by tossing a block of concrete onto her car from an overpass. The resulting accident led to a fatality, but it wasn't Amber. Now, two months later, the killer has struck more effectively. On the way home from the Bling-Bling Club, Amber's been beaten to death with a brick that could have come from anywhere. As Wexford, DS Hannah Goldsmith and their colleagues (The Babes in the Wood, 2003, etc.) methodically begin to interrogate witnesses and potential suspects--the neighbors of Amber's adoring father and hostile stepmother, the friends she went clubbing with, the well-connected family of her baby's father--Rendell sets about bringing each of them to startling life. She lavishes equal care on the members of Wexford's own family, led this time by his daughter Sylvia, who's quixotically determined to carry a baby for her ex-husband, Neil, and his girlfriend, Naomi. Soon enough, the murderer claims a new victim, pregnant shop clerk Megan Bartlow, whose connection with Amber isn't hard to find. But it'll be months before Wexford emerges from an intricate web of red herrings to identify a sadly amateurish scam and a surprising killer. Average for Rendell's distinguished list of whodunits, which makes it just a whisker below state of the art. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.