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    The Best Man to Die
    The Best Man to Die
    The Best Man to Die
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Best Man to Die

    Written by Ruth Rendell

    Narrated by Davina Porter

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Charlie Hatton wanted fast money and conspicuous success, and he was prepared to cut any corners to get them. But before he could realize a single ambition, he was found dead at the edge of a river.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJul 8, 2011
    ISBN9781461812036
    The Best Man to Die
    Author

    Ruth Rendell

    Ruth Rendell (1930–2015) won three Edgar Awards, the highest accolade from Mystery Writers of America, as well as four Gold Daggers and a Diamond Dagger for outstanding contribution to the genre from England’s prestigious Crime Writ­ers’ Association. Her remarkable career spanned a half century, with more than sixty books published. A member of the House of Lords, she was one of the great literary figures of our time.

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    Reviews for The Best Man to Die

    4.5/5

    22 ratings3 reviews

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    • 3/5
      An early Wexford. Viewing and listening to Rendell's works is a different experience than reading them. Glad that I am finally doing the latter. Certainly Wexford is much different here than I had imagined him. I am not sure I like him as much as I did in the later books but still The Best Man to Die managed to keep my interest throughout.
    • 3/5
      I expected more. The narrator was wonderful and I enjoyed Wexford and Clytemnestra, the dog. There were many characters and two plots which you knew were going to intersect. I thought that the conclusion was weak.
    • 5/5
      I'm never quite sure whether I have read an earlier Wexford or not. With 23 titles in the series I guess I can be forgiven. Anyway, I have no memory of this story.I was taken by the description of Wexford in the early pages, because it is so unlike my George Baker (TV) image. I've never thought of Reg Wexford as ugly. All he needed, he sometimes thought, was a trunk to make him look exactly like an elephant. His body was huge and ponderous, his skin pachydermatous, wrinkled and grey, and his three-cornered ears stuck out absurdly under the sparse fringe of colourless hair. When he went to the zoo he passed the elephant house quickly lest some irreverent onlooker should make comparisons.This is early in the Wexford series and I think Ruth Rendell is still finding her way, establishing her style. There are passages in THE BEST MAN TO DIE that are a bit floral, over-descriptive, and she still hasn't got to that economy of words that characterises her later books. There's a wry humour though, and what will become a typical ambiguity in the meaning of the title.Wexford is in his fifties, and already working with Mike Burden. His elder daughter is married and his younger one living at home, still happy to pass her dental bills and other responsibilities on to Pop. There are nice snippets of the tensions of family life.A lift is installed in the Kingsmarkham police station and Wexford, ever mistrustful of new gadgets, and very conscious of his weight, is of course in it on his own when it gets stuck between floors. Two hours in an airless lift nearly cuts short his career, but typically he sits on the floor and comes up with the solution to the crime.In this novel Rendell seems to be toying with the idea of expanding the detective duo. Wexford's doctor, Dr. Crocker is a childhood friend, although six years his junior, and Wexford makes use of him a couple of times. I don't remember Crocker having much of a role in other books.Altogether a nice read, proving for me that the early Rendell novels still have great appeal.