Wolf to the Slaughter

Anita Margolis is beautiful, wealthy, and thoroughly disreputable, and now she has vanished. There is no body, no confirmed crime, and only an anonymous letter to suggest that something has gone wrong. Inspector Wexford and Sergeant Burden's investigation peels back the layers of Anita's life, revealing the men who wanted her, the money she had, and the particular kind of trouble that beautiful, amoral women attract in Ruth Rendell's fictional English countryside. The two detectives disagree sharply about what happened and why.

George Baker is the voice most associated with early Inspector Wexford entries, bringing the right combination of wry intelligence and period atmosphere to Rendell's countryside procedural. His handling of the Wexford-Burden dynamic captures both the professional respect and the genuine disagreements that define their partnership. At under three hours, this is a notably compressed entry in the series, making it an ideal sample for listeners new to Rendell's work.