Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Monster in the Box by The Monster in the Box : Book summary and reviews of The Monster in the Box by Ruth Rendell. The Monster In The Box is the latest addition to Ruth Rendell's classic and beguiling series. In this enthralling new book, Rendell, "the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world" ( Time ), takes Inspector Wexford back to his days as a young policeman, and to the man he has long suspected of murder - serial murder. Outside the house where Wexford investigated his first murder case - a woman found strangled in her bedroom - he noticed a short, muscular man wearing a scarf and walking a dog. He gave Wexford an unnerving stare. Without any solid evidence, Wexford began to suspect that this man - Eric Targo, he learned - was the killer. Over the years there are more unsolved, apparently motiveless murders in the town of Kingsmarkham, and Wexford continues to quietly suspect that the increasingly prosperous Targo - van driver, property developer, kennel owner, and animal lover - is behind them. Now, half a lifetime later, Wexford spots Targo back in Kingsmarkham after a long absence. Wexford tells his longtime partner, Mike Burden, about his suspicions, but Burden dismisses them as fantasy. Meanwhile, Burden's wife, Jenny, has suspicions of her own. She believes that the Rahmans, a highly respectable immigrant family from Pakistan, may be forcing their daughter, Tamima, into an arranged marriage - or worse. In The Monster in the Box , the twenty-second book in the Inspector Wexford series, fans will be thrilled to meet the now-aging inspector in the robust early days of his career. For new readers, no introduction to this spectacular writer and her compelling protagonist could be finer. Reviews "Beyond the Book" articles Free books to read and review (US only) Find books by time period, setting & theme Read-alike suggestions by book and author Book club discussions and much more! Just $12 for 3 months or $39 for a year. Reviews. Media Reviews. "While the reminiscing dilutes some of the suspense, Rendell easily outdistances most mystery writers with her complex characters and her poetic yet astringent style." - Publishers Weekly. "A less impassioned, more valedictory version of (1995) with a bonus: more information about Wexford's early years than his celebrated creator has ever shared." - Kirkus Reviews. This information about The Monster in the Box shown above was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. In most cases, the reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that the reviews shown do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, please send us a message with the mainstream media reviews that you would like to see added. Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published. The Monster in the Box — Ruth Rendell. The Monster in the Box is the latest addition to Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford series. In this enthralling new book, Rendell, takes Inspector Wexford back to his first murder case -- a woman found strangled in her bedroom. Outside the crime scene, Wexford noticed a short, muscular man wearing a scarf and walking a dog. The man gave Wexford an unnerving stare. Without any solid evidence, Wexford began to suspect that this man -- Eric Targo -- was the killer. Over the years there are more unsolved, apparently motiveless murders in the town of Kingsmarkham. Now, half a lifetime later, Wexford spots Targo back in Kingsmarkham after a long absence. Wexford tells his longtime partner, Mike Burden, about his suspicions, but Burden dismisses them as fantasy. Meanwhile, Burden's wife, Jenny, has suspicions of her own. She believes that the Rahmans, a highly respectable immigrant family from Pakistan, may be forcing their daughter, Tamima, into an arranged marriage -- or worse. ISBN 13: 9780091931490. "He had never told anyone. The strange relationship, if it could be called that, had gone on for years, decades, and he had never breathed a word about it. He had kept silent because he knew no one would believe him. None of it could be proved, not the stalking, not the stares or the conspiratorial smiles, not the killings, not any of the signs Targo had made because he knew Wexford knew and could do nothing about it." Wexford had almost made up his mind that he would never again set eyes on Eric Targo's short, muscular figure. And yet there he was, back in Kingsmarkham, still with that cocky, strutting walk. Years earlier, when Wexford was a young police officer, a woman called Elsie Carroll had been found strangled in her bedroom. Although many still had their suspicions that her husband was guilty, no one was convicted. Another woman was strangled shortly afterwards, and every personal and professional instinct told Wexford that the killer was still at large. And it was Eric Targo. A psychopath who would kill again. As the Chief Inspector investigates a new case, Ruth Rendell looks back to the beginning of Wexford's career, even to his courtship of the woman who would become his wife. The past is a haunted place, with clues and passions that leave an indelible imprint on the here and now. From the Hardcover edition. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Ruth Rendell, who also writes as Barbara Vine, is the author of more than 70 books. She has won numerous awards, including the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for 1976's best crime novel with ; a second Edgar in 1984 from the Mystery Writers of America for the best short story, The New Girl Friend ; and a Gold Dagger Award for in 1986. She was also the winner of the 1990 Sunday Times Literary award, as well as the Crime Writers' Association Cartier Diamond Dagger. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer, a four-time winner of the Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger for Fiction award, the recipient of a CBE and in 1997 of a lifetime peerage. From the Hardcover edition. Excerpt. � Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. : CHAPTER ONE. He had never told anyone. The strange relationship, if it could be called that, had gone on for years, decades, and he had never breathed a word about it. He had kept silent because he knew no one would believe him. None of it could be proved, not the stalking, not the stares, the conspiratorial smiles, not the killings, not any of the signs Targo had made because he knew that Wexford knew and could do nothing about it. It had gone on for years and then it had stopped. Or seemed to have stopped. Targo was gone. Back to Birmingham yet again or perhaps to Coventry. A long time had passed since he had been seen in Kingsmarkham and Wexford had thought it was all over. Thought with regret, not relief, because if Targo disappeared – more to the point, if Targo never did it again – what hope had he of bringing the man to justice? Still, he had almost made up his mind he would never see him any more. He would never again set eyes on that short, muscular figure with the broad shoulders and the thick sturdy legs, the coarse fairish hair, blunt features and bright blue eyes – and the mark that must always be kept covered up. Wexford had only once seen him without the scarf he wore wrapped round his neck, a wool scarf in winter, a cotton or silk one in summer, a scarf that belonged to one of his wives perhaps, no matter so long as it covered that purple-brown birthmark which disfigured his neck, crept up to his cheek and dribbled down to his chest. He had seen him only once without a scarf, never without a dog. Eric Targo. Older than Wexford by seven or eight years, a much-married man, van driver, property developer, kennels proprietor, animal lover, murderer. It was coincidence or chance – Wexford favoured the latter – that he was thinking about Targo for the first time in weeks, wondering what had happened to him, pondering and dismissing the rumour that he was back living in the area, regretting that he had never proved anything against him, when the man appeared in front of him, a hundred yards ahead. There was no doubt in his mind, even at that distance, even though Targo’s shock of hair was quite white now. He still strutted, straight-backed, the way a short man carries himself, and he still wore a scarf. In his left hand, on the side nearest to Wexford, he carried a laptop computer. Or, to be accurate, a case made to hold a laptop. Wexford was in his car. He pulled in to the side of Glebe Road and switched off the engine. Targo had got out of a white van and gone into a house on the same side as Wexford was parked. No dog? Wexford had to decide whether he wanted Targo to see him. Perhaps it hardly mattered. How long was it? Ten years? More? He got out of the car and began to walk in the direction of the house Targo had gone into. It was one of a terrace between a jerry-built block of flats and a row of small shops, an estate agent, a nail bar, a newsagent and a shop called Webb and Cobb (a name Wexford found amusing) once selling pottery and kitchen utensils but now closed down and boarded up. Mike Burden had lived here once, when he was first married to his first wife; number 36, Wexford remembered. Number 34 was the house Targo had gone into. The front door of Burden’s old house was painted purple now and the new residents had paved over their narrow strip of front garden to make a motorbike park, something Burden said he resented, as if he had any right to a say in what the present owners did to their property. It made Wexford smile to himself to think of it. There was no sign of Targo. Wexford walked up to the offside of the van and looked through the driver’s window. It was open about three inches, for the benefit of a smallish dog, white and a tawny colour, of a feathery-eared, long-coated breed he didn’t recognise, sitting on the passenger seat. It turned its head to look at Wexford and let out a single sharp yap, not very loud, not at all angry. Wexford returned to his car and moved it up the road to a position on the opposite side to the white van, between a Honda and a Vauxhall. From there he could command a good view of number 34. How long would Targo stay in there? And what had he been doing with the laptop or the laptop case? It seemed an unlikely place for any friend of Targo’s to live. When he had last seen the owner of the whitish-tawny dog and the white van, Targo had been doing well for himself, was a rich man, while Glebe Road was a humble street where several families of immigrants had settled and which Burden had moved out of as soon as he could afford to. He noted the number of the white van. He waited. It was, he thought, a very English sort of day, the air still, the sky a uniform white. On such a day, at much the same time of year, late summer, he had visited Targo’s boarding kennels and seen the snake. The scarf round Targo’s neck had been of black, green and yellow silk, almost but not quite covering the birthmark, and the snake which he draped round it had been the same sort of colours, the pattern on its skin more intricate. Accident or design? Nothing Targo might do would surprise him. The first time he had seen him, years and years ago when both were young but he, Wexford, was very young, Targo wore a brown wool scarf. It was winter and cold. The dog with him was a spaniel. What was it called? Wexford couldn’t remember. He remembered the second time because that was the only time Targo had been for a few minutes without a scarf. He had opened the front door to Wexford, left him standing there while he picked a scarf, his wife’s, off a hook and wound it round his neck. In those few seconds Wexford had seen the purple-brown naevus, shaped like a map of some unknown continent with peninsulas running out to his chest and headlands skimming his chin and cheek, uneven with valleys and mountain ranges, and then Targo had covered it . . . Now the front door of number 34 opened and the man emerged. He stood on the doorstep talking to a young Asian, the occupant, or one of the occupants, of the house. The young man, who wore jeans and a dazzlingly white shirt, was at least six inches taller than Targo, handsome, his skin a pale amber colour, his hair jet black. Targo, Wexford noticed, might have grown old but he still had a young man’s figure. The T-shirt he wore showed off his heavily muscled torso and the black jeans emphasised his flat stomach. He had left the laptop behind. While he was in the house he had taken off his blue-and-white scarf. Because it was warm, no doubt, and, incredibly, because it was no longer needed for concealment. The birthmark had gone. For a moment Wexford asked himself if he could possibly have made the wrong identification. The yellow hair had gone white, he couldn’t see the bright blue eyes. It was the purple naevus which had been the distinguishing mark and which primarily identified him. But no, this was Targo all right, squat, stocky, muscular Targo with his cocky walk and his confident stance. The Asian man walked a few steps down the short path with him. He held out his hand and, after a slight hesitation, Targo took it. Asians shook hands a lot, Wexford had noted, friends meeting by chance in the street, always men, though, never women. Someone had told him the Asians at number 34 owned the defunct Webb and Cobb next door – for what that was worth. No doubt they received rents from the tenants of the flats above. Targo came across to the van, opened the driver’s door and climbed in. Wexford could just about see him stroke the dog’s head, then briefly put his arm round it and give it a squeeze. If there was any doubt left, the dog identified him. A memory came to him from the quite distant past; the first Mrs Targo, by then divorced, saying of her ex-husband, ‘He likes animals better than people. Well, he doesn’t like people at all.’ The white van moved off. It might be unwise to follow it, Wexford thought. He hadn’t much faith in his powers of following a vehicle without its driver spotting him. It would be easy enough to find out where Targo now lived, harder to say what use discovering his address would be. He sat there for a few moments longer, reflecting on how the first effect of seeing Targo had been to make him aware of his own physical shortcomings. Yet when he had first seen him, all those years ago, he had been a tall young policeman, very young and very fit, while Targo was squat and over- muscled and with that horrible facial mark. Sometime in the years since they had last encountered each other, Targo must have had the naevus removed. It could be done with a laser – Wexford had read in a magazine article about new remedies for disfigurement and deformity. The man had been making a lot of money and no doubt he had spent some of it on this improvement to his appearance as others had their noses reshaped and their breasts augmented. The strange thing, he thought, was that Targo still sometimes wore a scarf even on a summer’s day – until he remembered and stripped it off. Did he feel cold without that neck covering he had been wearing for most of his life? A girl was walking past his car, starting to cross the street between it and the Honda. She looked about sixteen, wore the dark blue skirt and white blouse with a blazer which constituted the uniform of Kingsmarkham Comprehensive and, covering her head, the hijab. In her case it was a plain headscarf, the same colour as her skirt, but, unflattering as it was, it failed to spoil her looks. Her dark brown eyes, surmounted by fine shapely eyebrows, glanced briefly in his direction. She went towards the house Targo had come out of, took a key from the satchel she carried and let herself in. Too old to be the daughter of the handsome young man. His sister? Perhaps. Five minutes later he was parking the car on his own garage drive. Instead of letting himself in by the front door, he walked round the back and surveyed his garden. It was a large garden which Dora had been doing her best to keep tidy and under control since their gardener had left three months before. It had been a losing battle. Those three months were the time of year when a garden needed constant attention, lawnmowing, weeding, deadheading, cutting back. Very little of that had been done. I suppose I could spend the weekend making a real effort, he thought, and then added, no, I couldn’t. We must get a gardener, and soon. He took a last look at the ragged lawn, the dead roses dropping petals, the nettles springing up vigorously among the dahlias, and went into the house by the back door. Dora was in the living room, reading the local evening paper. ‘We have to get a gardener,’ said Wexford. She looked up, smiled, said in a fair imitation of his voice, ‘Hallo, darling, how lovely to be home. How are you?’ He kissed her. ‘OK, I know that’s what I should have said. But we do need a gardener. I’ll get you a drink.’ In the kitchen he poured her a glass of Sauvignon from the fridge and himself one of Merlot from the cupboard. No good putting nuts or crisps into a bowl because she’d snatch it away from him and hide it somewhere as soon as she saw it. He thought again of Targo’s muscly body and then he carried the wine into the living room. ‘What do you think about Muslim girls wearing the hijab?’ ‘Is that the headscarf ? I think they should if they want to, really want to for themselves, I mean, but shouldn’t be coerced into it, certainly not by fathers and brothers.’ ‘It must be the most unbecoming headgear for a woman to wear. But I suppose that’s the point.’ ‘Or if you’re Muslim you don’t find it unattractive. Which brings me to Jenny. She’s been here talking about some girl, a Muslim girl, she’s sixteen, in her class at school. She seems to think you ought to know about it.’ ‘Know what?’ Wexford liked Burden’s wife, knew she was intelligent and a good teacher, but if only she wouldn’t try to get him involved in investigations which wasted his time and usually came to nothing. ‘What’s wrong now?’ ‘This girl – she’s called Tamima Something, Tamima Rahman, and she lives with her family in Glebe Road, next to where Mike and Jean used to live –’ ‘I’ve seen her. I saw her today.’ ‘Well, unless there are two sixteen-year-old Muslim girls living next to where Mike used to live in Glebe Road and attending Kingsmarkham Comp, I can be pretty sure I’ve seen her. What’s Jenny’s business with her?’ ‘She says Tamima got seven or eight GCSEs, A-stars and As and Bs, and if all goes well she’ll be going on to sixth-form college. But the girl seems unhappy, uneasy even, worried about something. She’s got a boyfriend, a Muslim like herself, so that ought to be all right but Jenny doesn’t think it is. She thinks you ought to see the family, find out what’s going on. Mike, apparently, isn’t interested.’ ‘Good for Mike,’ said Wexford. ‘He’s better than I am at being firm with people who want to waste his time. Now, how about this gardener? Shall I put an ad in the Courier ?’ From the Hardcover edition. The Monster in the Box. The twenty-second book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford. Wexford had almost made up his mind that he would never again set eyes on Eric Targo's short, muscular figure. And yet there he was, back in Kingsmarkham, still with that cocky, strutting walk. Years earlier, when Wexford was a young police officer, a woman called Elsie Carroll had been found strangled in her bedroom. Although many still had their suspicions that her husband was guilty of her violent murder, no one was convicted. Another woman was strangled shortly afterwards, and every personal and professional instinct told Wexford that the killer was still at large. And that it was Eric Targo. A psychopathic murderer who would kill again. As the Chief Inspector investigates a new case, Ruth Rendell looks back to the beginning of Wexford's career as a detective, even to his courtship of the woman who would become his wife. The villainous Targo is not the only ghost from Wexford's past who has re-emerged to haunt him in the here and now. The Monster in the Box. Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I have not read the Wexford mysteries in order, but just read them as I found them. This one seems different in some ways from the others I have read, and even seems like a winding down of the series. Which, in a way, it is. Only two more were written after this. Wexford decides to tell his partner, Mike Burden, about his obsession with a man he has thought about for years. The man, Eric Targo, first grabbed Wexford's attention at the time of the murder of a young wife. She was strangled and her husband was suspected of the crime. Nevertheless, because of the way Targo had behaved around Wexler, he came to think Targo had actually killed her. Targo appeared to be stalking Wexler. He showed up at odd times, not consistent with where he himself lived, with a dog on a leash. He would look into the window where Wexford was sitting and give him a stare that as much as said, "I did it and I will get away with it". Wexford could find no evidence connecting the man to the crime but he remained convinced that he was responsible. Targo continued to haunt him, both in his mind and physically, except when he moved from the area. Over the years Wexford saw him at the times of different murders, always strangulations. It even seemed that Targo wanted Wexford to think he had committed some murders that he couldn't have. This obsession with the "monster" that was Targo stayed with Wexler through his career, yet he told nobody. He knew there was no point without evidence. Yet finally he decides to tell Burden. Little by little, through the book, he reveals his thoughts, knowing Burden will likely not believe his conclusions. But that's okay. While Wexler is trying to find ways to bring Targo to justice, Burden's wife raises a concern about one of her pupils, Tamima. The sixteen-year-old Muslim had earned high scores in school and was a prime candidate for higher schooling at a good university. But she now is saying she wants to stop. No school, just get a job. Jenny, Burden's wife, thinks there may be something going on at home that is keeping Tamima from going further with her education. Are her parents going to force her into a marriage? Are they keeping her from seeing her boyfriend? Wexler assigns Hannah Goldsmith to the case, given her commitment to fair treatment for all, an anti-racist position that sometimes caused her to pull her hair out in trying to negotiate her beliefs about feminism with various culture mores. Hannah pursues the case with gusto while Wexler and Burden try to stay out of it. There is more to the novel than the pursuit of a possible serial killer and the behavior of a sixteen-year-old. We learn much more about Wexler's early dating life and his meeting of his present wife. In fact, a great deal of the book fills in details of Wexler's earlier life and gives us more of him as a person. As in other Rendell novels, this one excels in its details, both about events and about persons. Rendell gives us whole people and backstories, seems to revel in the side story at times. I found it a great pleasure to read. ( ) It's always a pleasure to find an Inspector Wexford book I haven't yet read - they have a certain quality you can rely on. This, like some of Rendell's other books, wasn't so much a whodunnit as an already-knowing-whodunnit and just needing to prove it, but this is clear from the start and not a problem. Interwoven with the main storyline was the mystery of a local Muslim girl who has been taken out of school and spirited away to stay with relatives. What could we be looking at here: forced marriage? Honour killing? Ruth Rendell calmly works through all the knee-jerk reactions but you know that an author of her stature will not resort to stereotypes. Notably, one of the most intriguing characters was Mrs Qasi, the Muslim with a bottle of sherry on the sideboard for guests. ("I celebrate Christmas like any other British citizen whilst not believing in the faith behind it - again like most British citizens" - brilliant, brilliant). It was enjoyable, too, to hear a little bit about Wexford's past, his early career and how he met his wife. A pleasant feeling of nostalgia at the end of this long running series. ( ) Inspector Wexford just knows that the man walking his dog has killed someone, maybe several someones. He obsesses throughout the book, trying to find some proof that Targo is a killer. Meanwhile, his assistant is also trying to prove a crime has been committed or is being planned. The two muck about trying to find evidence to back up their assumptions. j. This book was a hard read for me. I didn't feel close to any of the characters, they all seemed a little flat or understated. Maybe being a dog person, I was just annoyed that the "bad guy" loved dogs more than people. This was the first Ruth Rendell book I've read. I'll give her another try, despite rather not liking this book. ( ) Reg Wexford spots in the street the man he believes committed a murder and got away with it; the first murder he investigated as a junior officer some 40 years earlier. Not unnaturally seeing Eric Targo like this puts Wexford in a reflective mood and he reveals to his fellow officer Mike Burden the events that occurred during and after that first investigation. He also spends a fair amount of time in contemplation of his early personal life, including how he met his wife and other events that took place prior to the first novel in the series. When Targo is possibly involved in a new crime things become more critical. At the same time Mike’s wife Jenny, a teacher, and DS Hanna Goldsmith embroil Wexford in a case in which they believe a teenage girl in an Asian family is being prevented from attending school. The part of the book that deals with Wexford’s obsession with Targo (and Targo’s with Wexford) is compellingly told. I got a really strong sense of why the man bothered Wexford so much and how galling it must be for a policeman to know someone is guilty of murder but not be able to prove that guilt. That such a thing would become an obsession seems perfectly natural in the context of both this story and Wexford’s longer one that has played out over the series. I didn’t think that Targo’s penchant for playing games with Wexford nor his hurriedly described motivations for his crimes rang as true though. When we move to the ‘case’ of Tamima Kahn and her family I found the book less successful all together. Both Jenny Burden and Hanna Goldsmith are well-intentioned but utterly patronising in their attitudes to the Kahns (and any other Asians encountered) and I’m not convinced that Rendell acknowledging this within the story (by having one of the extended Kahn family tell the two women they are being rude) makes up for it. And even if it does, for me this thread remains far less interesting because of the tone and made the overall book drag a little in places. The Monster in the Box is apparently to be Wexford’s last outing and in some senses this is fitting in that most people probably finish their careers with a slow whimper rather than a big bang. I can see how fans might think this an unfitting way for him to finish up his career because neither case requires much in the way of Wexford’s investigative skills to resolve and there is a generally unsatisfactory feel about the resolution to both threads. However as a non-fan I thought it one of the best, most believable portrayals of him that I’ve read, not only with respect to his obsession but also his desire to reflect on his own life and the social changes he’s seen in his time as a man and an officer. For that alone the book is worth reading. What about the audio book? Nigel Anthony has a quiet voice with a hint of an accent which seems to suit the gentle pace of this story. He doesn’t do a completely different voice for each person but seems to pull off the changes in character with very slight changes in tone or volume. This is my favourite kind of narration and I would definitely look for more audiobooks narrated by Nigel Anthony. ( )