No one admitted to spotting the doctor's missing daughter—even after the murders began. Melanie Akande, eschewing privilege, had insisted on going to the jobsearch office to find employment. But between that office and the bus stop, she vanished. Inspector Wexford hoped someone would have noticed her, since the Akandes were among the few Africans living in Kingsmarkham. Instead, he had found a middle-aged white woman strangled in bed, and a mysterious black girl buried in a shallow grave.

Now Wexford, seeking connections among the three women, cast his baleful eye on the changes in once rural Sussex—from a Kuwaiti millionaire's Rolls-Royce to the growing slums and dismal hopelessness of unemployed youth. What he can't see among them is the shocking, blood-chilling motive to kill. And what he has yet to find is a doctor's missing child . . . 

Published
January 1, 1994
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Author

Ruth Rendell

Ruth Rendell (born February 17, 1930, South Woodford, Essex, England—died May 2, 2015, London) was a British writer of mystery novels, psychological crime novels, and short stories who was perhaps best known for her novels featuring Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford.Rendell initially worked as a reporter and copy editor for West Essex newspapers. Her first novel, From Doon with Death (1964), introduced Wexford, the clever chief inspector of a town in southeastern England, and his more stodgy associate Mike Burden. The pair appear in more than 20 additional novels of police procedure.In time Rendell’s psychological thrillers, which present the…