Harm Done

The search for the body commenced. Then the victim walked into town. Behind the picture-postcard facade of Kingsmarkham lies a community rife with violence, betrayal, and a taste for vengeance. When sixteen-year-old Lizzie Cromwell reappears no one knows where she has been, including Lizzie herself. Inspector Wexford thinks she was with a boyfriend. But the disappearance of a three-year-old girl casts a more ominous light on events. And when the public's outrage turns toward a recently released pederast and another suspect turns up stabbed to death, Wexford must try to unravel the mystery before any more bodies appear, and before a mob of local vigilantes metes out a rough justice to their least favorite suspect. In Harm Done, the violence is near at hand, and evil lies just a few doors down the block. "From the Trade Paperback edition."

Review :
"Ruth Rendell is unequivocally the most brilliant mystery writer of our time." --Patricia Cornwell "Rendell's clear, shapely prose casts the mesmerizing spell of the confessional." --The New Yorker "No one plays head games quite as well as Rendell." --The Gazette (Montreal) "Rendell writes with such elegance and restraint, with such a literate voice and an insightful mind, that she transcends the mystery genre and achieves something almost sublime." --Los Angeles Times "No one writes with more devastating accuracy about the world we live and commit sins in today. . . . She is one of our most important novelists." --John Mortimer "Rendell just seems to get sharper and sharper." --The Ottawa Citizen "British crime at its best can be found in the fiction of Ruth Rendell, for whom no superlative is sufficient." --Chronicle-Herald (Halifax) "Ruth Rendell has written some of the best novels of twentieth-century crime fiction." --Frances Fyfield, author of Blind Date and Without Consent "Ruth Rendell is surely one of the greatest novelists presently at work in our language. She is a writer whose work should be read by anyone who enjoys either brilliant mystery--or distinguished literature." --Scott Turow "From the Hardcover edition." "Rendell's clear, shapely prose casts the mesmerizing spell of the confessional." --"The New Yorker" "It's no use trying to read Ruth Rendell's mind. You can follow her logic, analyze her insights and puzzle out her plots. But she'll always astonish you, as she does in Harm Done, with the emotional depth of her psychological mysteries." --"The New York Times Book Review" "True to form, Rendell invites readers to experience a real touch of evil in Harm Done. . . . The plotting is as intricate, the creepiness quotient as high, as ever." --"The Washington Post Book World" "Most satisfying. With her characterisitc elegance, Rendell has written another winner."--"The Kansas City Star"