A Guilty Thing Surprised

Inspector Wexford #5

by Ruth Rendell

She took a peaceful walk in the woods—and found death waiting. . . .

“The best mystery writer anywhere in the English-speaking world.”— The Boston Globe

Elizabeth and Quentin Nightingale. A happy couple who lived quite graciously at Myfleet Manor in the gentle English countryside.

Elizabeth Nightingale found peace and tranquility on her nightly walks through the rich, dense forests surrounding Myfleet Manor. But the peace she treasured was shattered one night when she found death waiting in the woods.

Chief Inspector Wexford and his colleague Inspector Burden find a most unsavory case on their hands—and must use all their wit and wisdom to solve it . . .

“Undoubtedly one of the best writers of English mysteries and chiller-killer plots.” — Los Angeles Times

“You cannot afford to miss Ruth Rendell.” — The New York Times Book Review

“For readers who have almost given up mysteries . . . Rendell may be just the woman to get them started again.” — Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Detective, British Literature, Audiobook, Thriller

193 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

A.K.A. Barbara Vine

Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE, who also wrote under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, was an acclaimed English crime writer, known for her many psychological thrillers and murder mysteries and above all for Inspector Wexford.

Reviews

[Alan (the Lone Librarian rides again) Teder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poets and Lovers
Review of the Arrow Books/Cornerstone Digital Kindle eBook edition (2009) of the original Hutchinson hardcover (1970)

High instincts, before which our mortal nature,
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised. - William Wordsworth from Ode to Immortality

This continues my 2022-23 binge read / re-read of Ruth Rendell (aka Barbara Vine and this is the 5th of her Chief Inspector Wexford series. A Guilty Thing Surprised involves the murder of Elizabeth Nightingale with the suspects being the various members of her & her husband Quentin's extended household and that of her brother, Denys Villiers, who is an obsessive expert in the life and poetry of William Wordsworth.

Villiers smiled a little, apparently at something in his own book. Aware as he was of the huge vanity of writers, Wexford was nevertheless unable to understand how one of them could actually laugh at something he had written himself.

Cover image for the original Hutchinson (UK) hardcover edition from 1970. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

The poetry aspect is actually a clue to the final solution which dawns upon Inspector Wexford towards the end. In the meantime there are plenty of suspicious goings on to investigate and explain. Was the marriage of the Nightingales actually as happy as it appeared? Why did Elizabeth and her brother seem to hate each other? Was the youthful gardener a possible secret lover of Elizabeth? Wexford and his faithful assistant Mike Burden have many trails to follow before the conclusion is reached.

This was yet another excellent and unconventional mystery from Ruth Rendell and I am excited to continue this binge read for 2023. I have to try and source some of the non-Wexfords as well, as I have never previously read those.

One might say with Wilde that the good ended happily and the bad unhappily, for that is the meaning of fiction.

Trivia and Links
A Guilty Thing Surprised was adapted for the Ruth Rendell / Inspector Wexford Mysteries TV series (1987-2000) as Series 2, Episodes 1 to 3 in 1988 with actor George Baker as Inspector Wexford. You can watch the entire 3 episodes on YouTube here.

Read about Five Key Works by Ruth Rendell in The Guardian, May 2, 2015.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poor old Burden. He is a great foil to Wexford and easily shocked. The murder of Elizabeth Nightingale found bludgeoned to death while on an evening walk.

This mystery has lots of potential suspects. Her husband Quentin, her brother Denys Villiers who hates her, his wife Georgina a strange woman , Sean Lovell the gardener or Wexford’s friend Marriot or Katje the Dutch nanny.

The clues are there but I failed to solve it. A good twist at the end.

[Jaksen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this quick, short, fast, clever mystery.

I thought I had this one figured out about 80 pages in - turned out I was wrong!

A young wife is found murdered; there are multiple suspects; said suspects don't say much about what they know - or they say too much; too little; hedge, weave and wind; and of course they lie. Sorting it all out is the ever-capable Wexford with his younger, and often overly-prudish and prejudicial sidekick, Burden. The pair are great, with the younger one more locked into tradition and the way 'life should be,' and the older the more forward-looking and open-minded one. (It's backward from the usual format for a detective or mystery novel, which is a treat in this series, even from a book written 40 years ago.)

There are clues upon clue; psychological insights enough to drive anyone crazy; and yet it's short, crisply-written, and simply an elegant and perfect mystery.

I shall continue on my Wexford journey ...

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read by............... Christopher Ravenscroft
Total Runtime......... 5 Hours 30 Mins

Description: The discovery of Elizabeth Nightingale's broken body in the woods near her home could not have come as a bigger shock. Called in to investigate, Chief Inspector Wexford quickly determines that the Nightingales were considered the perfect couple - wealthy, attractive and without an enemy in the world. However, someone must have been alone with Elizabeth that night in the woods. Someone who hated - or perhaps loved - her enough to beat her to death. The case seems straightforward. But Wexford soon learns that beneath the placid surface of the Nightingales' lives lie undercurrents and secrets no one ever suspected.

3* From Doon With Death (Inspector Wexford, #1)
3* A New Lease of Death (Inspector Wexford, #2)
3* Wolf to the Slaughter (Inspector Wexford, #3)
2* The Best Man to Die (Inspector Wexford, #4)
3* A Guilty Thing Suprised #5

3* Murder Being Once Done (Inspector Wexford, #7)
3* Not in the Flesh (Inspector Wexford, #21)
2* The Vault (Inspector Wexford, #23)

[Barbara K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although Rendell, as always, is a master of the local police procedural I didn't enjoy this as much as the previous book in the series. To her credit, although the principal characters are well settled into their final forms now, they show small developments in personality that make them more human and less caricature. Wexford, especially, demonstrates a high degree of self awareness.

I guess my small issue with the book is that I am not as much of a Wordsworth enthusiast as Wexford and other characters in the book, and thus some of the plot points didn't jump out at me as quickly as they might for others. Still, Wexford's ruminations on aging added an engaging element, and it turned out to be an enjoyable read.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending definitely took me by surprise. Come talk about it with us at eh English Mysteries Wexford buddy read. Everyone is welcome.

[Pamela Shropshire · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are several things that make Rendell’s mysteries a cut above. One is the wide range and vast number of literary and cultural references, including quotes from both famous and obscure works. Inspector Wexford is known to be voracious for knowledge and his brain has retained a massive amount of what he has read over the years.

One example is in a scene with a character named Villiers, brother of the murdered woman. Villiers is one of those eccentric Englishmen who obsesses over some obscure poet or author or bit of history, except in this case Villiers is obsessed with Wordsworth - not exactly obscure. Anyway, he constantly acts as though he is far superior to everyone else. Wexford is trying to shake him up, and he suddenly quotes this couplet:

So much he soared beyond or sunk beneath/The men with whom he felt condemned to breathe.

Villiers instantly goes pale and completely still. When neither Wexford nor Burden says anything else, he laughs and changes the subject.

Later, when Burden asks where the quote came from, Wexford says he has no idea, but that he would like to know. However, ‘[i]t’d be a job tracing them, our England being a nest of singing birds.’

But it’s no job at all in the 21st century, not with Google. Within seconds, I learned it is from Lara, A Tale by Lord Byron. And the clue in Villiers’s momentary panic? Byron was suspected of being in love, and committing incest, with his (half) sister.

Another feature of Rendell’s work is that when you think you know the killer, you probably don’t; and even if you do guess whodunnit, it’s not at all for the reason you would have expected. This particular installment is no exception. 4 stars.

[Margie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Going back to read this Inspector Wexford mystery, written in 1970, was rather odd. I've come to know Wexford and Burden as much different, more fully developed characters. I liked them much less in this story.

Rendell has obviously grown quite a bit as a writer. There are bits that are a bit wooden and not at all nuanced. It's not a bad story, and in a way it makes me want to go back and read the entire arc of the Wexford storyline. But definitely not as good as the more recent books.

[Melinda Worfolk · Rating 3 out of 5]

A perfectly fine mystery. The audiobook narrator was good, and the story clipped along at a satisfying pace. I had sort of figured it out partway through, but it wasn't super obvious at the beginning, and there were a few good red herrings in there.

[Dyah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second Rendell novel I successfully finished consecutively without skipping to the back. I started reading Dennis Lehane's Sacred, but regrettably my heart and mind was not completely in it. I posthaste dive into another crime mystery book have stocked in my reader - this book.
I am faintly and pleasantly surprised at my ease in finishing this book. Reading works of Ruth Rendell had not always been smooth journey for me. Wolf to the Slaughter and A New Lease of Death had evoked in me nothing beside a strong urge to yawn and call it a day.
I still find it difficult to find Wexford and Burden endearing. They most surely do not have that Hastings-Poirot dynamic. And Wexford in this book does something that hopefully can make him understand and empathize with Mark Drayton (I am really disappointed that he no longer appears in subsequent books!).
The crime is ordinary in method, crude even. Death by blunt force trauma. I am sure that not even the fussiest of readers will find it as a spoiler, will you? But the motive is pretty shocking. Rendell gives the readers a good red herring this time. But some characters' presence seem superfluous, in that they can be scrapped out from the book without affecting the story in a major way.
As usual, Rendell scatters pearls of quotes in her book and forms sentence with the highest degree of beauty, which somehow fits well with her narrative without giving it any pretentious feel and succeeds in delivering the information and nuance to her readers. Woman really gets the talent of arranges the words into rich, fluent narrative like a jeweler's talent of stringing together a handful of natural pearls into a mutely radiant necklace or bracelet. Here is an example of a quote she inserted:

So much he soared beyond or sunk beneath
The men with whom he felt condemned to breathe

The couplet above was created a long time ago by literature enthusiasts idol and poster boy, Lord Byron.
As for neat sentences which Rendell herself had formed, no example is better than the last part of this book. Read this book if you enjoy crime novels in which all gory and ugliness is hidden beneath a pretty, respectable facade. No part in this book is vulgar - but there are a lot of parts which will stir slight uneasiness in you.

[Kevin Shoop · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book, I think, that Wexford becomes a three-dimensional character. Not only that, the plot/mystery is one of Rendell's best ever.

[Rob Smith, Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rendell's 'A Guilty Thing Surprised' begins as a very good mystery but ends with a thud.

Rendell sets up the story in a section of town with a small bundle of characters and proceeds through each forth and back again recording their story. The characters are good and the plotting seems well done. Then Rendell wraps up the last few pages with a weird little messy solution that, seemed to me, a desperate way to end a story differently.

The setting is well done and, otherwise plotted well.

Bottom line: I don't recommend this book. 5 out of 5 points.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Wexford (though the 5th in the series) and I really enjoyed it. Fast-paced, clever and a murderer from among the characters met and not flung in last minute.

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspector Wexford is on the case in this mystery, crime, thriller. It is a British police procedural novel as are all books in this series. This is the fifth book in the series but you do not have to read them in order.

Rendell honed her craft on these books and they became a tv series. A good read.

[Rita Andrade]

Foi interessante ler sobre uma investigação feita antes da era das novas tecnologias.
Admito que fui surpreendida pela revelação do segredo.

[Kristel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Despite my fondness for British Golden Age mysteries (Christie, Sayers, Marsh), I have yet to find a more contemporary mystery writer that I really enjoy. To wit, Ruth Rendell is widely regarded as a master of the form, yet this manor mystery about a woman found dead in the woods left me cold (pun not intended). There's a certain amount of wit that I feel is lacking here, despite erudite nature of the story.

A Guilty Thing Surprised is a novel that features Chief Inspector Wexford and Inspector Burden investigating the murder of Elizabeth Nightingale, the mistress of a manor that only seems genteel on the surface. Suspects immediately crop up as a series of interviews reveal the victim's manipulative nature. The retiring husband, the worldly au pair, and the professor brother--each one has something to hide. The novel's title is from a Coleridge poem, alluding to a setting that involves many literary and academic preoccupations.

I don't know why but I found the investigation, which mostly hinges on witness testimony, that I feel is too innocuous and paint-by-numbers. The alibi structure Murder at the Orient Express was utterly engaging for me, but the similar strategy here isn't successfully executed at all. The final clue to the murderer's identity is certainly transgressive, but the expository nature of the reveal dampened whatever reaction I may have had about the facts.

I will have to examine my preference for older cozies at a later time, because it's something that has become more evident as I continue reading mysteries.

Originally posted on my blog.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 Stars

[Sheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Ruth Rendell Reread #8 - A Guilty Thing Surprised. This was published in 1970 (we've reached the ´70s!), the fifth Wexford novel and the eighth overall. It follows the investigation into the murder of Elizabeth Nightingale, who everybody loves, except for the people who don't, one of whom evidently bashed her over the head with a blunt instrument.

There's actually a fairly straightforward plot with a cast of potential suspects - Elizabeth's husband Quentin, her brother, her brother's wife, servants past and present - though I admit I didn't guess by whom, or why, Elizabeth had been murdered.

There's very little of Wexford's family here, but we do, unfortunately, get some embarrassing stuff about an inappropriate crush he develops on a young au pair girl. Not that he'd ever do anything about it, but still. (She, for her part, seems more interested in the good-looking Burden.)

Wexford's friend Dr Crocker features again, and his name always makes me think of an Agatha Christie character. She probably didn't have a character named Dr Crocker, but it does sound very much like she might have done. The setup here, if not the resolution, is generally quite Christiesque.

Not a standout but a good read.

[Artie LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Rendell is beginning to get into her stride with this one. Reg Wexford's character is becoming more fully frmed, and the detectives' families are beginning to be sketched in. The household of the murder victim is verey credible, and the storyline opens out slowly and cleverly.

Recommended.

[*Stani* · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Wexford mysteries. They are so far each unique, different yet very poignant and all the characters realistic. Of course it’s all set in the quaint little hamlet of Sussex and all the regulars appear, the detectives, the town, the pub.

It’s always new and unexpected murder mystery yet with the familiar and cozy undercurrents.

This was no different and I thought I had it all figured out when I was completely shooting blanks.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very literary, quite sad, mostly quiet and reflective mystery. The best of it is in the confession at the end of the book, and Wexford’s reactions to Katje. I should reread Wordsworth.

[Virginia B · Rating 2 out of 5]

The blurb says, “A most unsavory case”. Yes.

[Bev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth Nightingale is the beautiful, young-looking, 40-ish wife of Quentin Nightingale. She has everything she could want--a lovely home at Myfleet Manor in the English countryside and a husband who denies her nothing. She is well-liked and likes everyone. Well...except her brother. When Elizabeth is found beaten over head after one of her evening walks in the woods, Chief Inspector Wexford and Inspector Burden must try to find a motive for the apparently senseless killing.

As they dig, they discover that while life at Myfleet Manor may have been quiet, all was not well between husband and wife. There had been a certain cooling between them. Was it possible that Elizabeth was meeting a lover that night? And did Quentin follow her and, in a fit of jealous rage, kill her? Or perhaps young Sean, the gardener whom she had remembered in her will, got anxious for the money she was going to leave him? It's also possible that whatever enmity there was between Elizabeth and her brother Denys Villiers exploded into murder. But the deeper Wexford and Burden go, the more complex the motives seem to get...especially when blackmail raises its ugly head.

I read most of Rendell's books through the early 1990s and enjoyed them all. But rereading them now, I'm struck by how many uncomfortable subjects creep into her mysteries. A Guilty Things Surprised is a case in point. I can't tell you what the uncomfortable subject is--but suffice it is to say that I had forgotten all about it and was completely taken off-guard by it again reading the book 30 years later. There are plenty of clues (especially if you have literary leanings) and Rendell handles the material well. But I still didn't see it coming.

I enjoyed the relationship between Wexford and Burden. Poor Mike Burden with his Puritan ways just can't seem to understand these people the way Wexford does. But Burden does get the chance to be proven right in some of his interpretations of the crime. It was good to see him shine a bit. A thoroughly interesting and good mystery. ★★★ and 1/2 [rounded up here]

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.

[Sandra Dias · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

Um casal conhecido pela sociedade que o rodeia como sendo o casal ideal. Mas que se revela outra coisa MUITO diferente.
O irmão da assassinada que a odeia profundamente e que não tem receio em escondê-lo, acompanhado pela mulher que literalmente ignora o porquê da cunhada ser o foco de atenções e sentimentos tão violentos.
Uma série de empregados, em que todos escondem algo.

O segredo que se revelaria fatal é que me deixou um pouco desnorteada e aparvalhada


mas a identidade do assassino já estava na minha cabecita já há muito tempo, simplesmente nunca advinharia que o tal segredo fatal seria aquele que acabei por ler nas últimas páginas


Um pouco rebuscado, mas funciona.

[Elena · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of these mysteries that is a little unsavory and all about the evils of humankind. I happened to read this alongside another mystery novel whose 'solve' was an incestuous relationship motivating the murder as well, which made me kind of throw up my hands. Is this the only solve possible for an idyllic British village, that carries just the right amount of taboo and good-gone-bad to be poetic? Whats with all the incest solves?!!?

Also the detectives and whatnot were ambiguous characters. Not my jam.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading these because I wanted some cozy English mysteries. Rendell writes about manors and sherry and so on, but then we end up with things like unhinged repressed lesbians, knife-wielding sexual sadists, and wackadoodle incest affairs. These things wouldn't happen to Peter Wimsey! I don't think they'd even happen to Dalgliesh.
I'm not sure I'm complaining, per se, I've just been surprised.

[Iblena · Rating 3 out of 5]

A gruesome story, but compared to the stories published today by Nordic writers A Guilty Thing Surprised do not impact . About the story, I would emphasize the personality of Inspector Wexford, this time it is not described as an old grumpy, Ruth Rendell describes him as a man nostalgic for his lost youth but also permissive and liberal. Unfortunately Burden continuous without showing to the Rendell's readers other nuances of his personality... always so puritanical and prudish.

[Smaug The Defiler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Badger’s Drift anyone? I am an avid Midsummer murders watcher. Because of this I was able to spot the murderer about three chapters in. I finished it anyway and enjoyed it. Mrs Rendell is a favorite of mine. This is not her best but it’s certainly not her worst either.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-crafted, quick read, too many typos -- for shame Ballantine.