I watch a lot of murder-y shows, but I don’t read a lot of murder-y books. Ruth Rendell was unknown to me before I read The St. Zita Society. Apparently, she’s a beloved novelist of almost a hundred murder-y books, so it appears to be bad luck that introduced me to her with this particular work. I selected this as an audiobook on my library app because it was immediately available and I was getting ready to clean out my pantry.
The story revolves around the servants in a posh neighborhood in London who are all up in each other’s business and who form a little club they call the St. Zita Society, (St. Zita being the patron saint of domestic servants) where they can hash out their gripes about their employers and discuss shared concerns about the neighborhood. The cast of this novel is huge. There are many people, including wealthy homeowners, with various motivations to keep track of. Unfortunately this makes it difficult to give much of a damn about any one of them. Even worse, it seems Rendell felt the need to resort to stereotypes as shorthand to convey the characters’ personalities and motives.
The weirdest thing, however, is that the book seems confused about its setting and time. Here’s what I imagine happened:
Rendell: Hey, publisher! I wrote another book! Check it out.
Publisher: Well, it’s ok. A little too old-timey and quaint. Everyone’s reading newspapers and the people in their 20s act like they’re in a period drama. It’s the 21st century, Rendell! No one under the age of 60 is going to read this quaint little soap opera.
Rendell: Ok, I’ll add a single cell phone to the plot.
Publisher: Perfect. Print it.
No murder happens in the first half of the book. It’s all about trying to create connections between people who aren’t particularly interesting or compelling in any way, which means when someone finally dies, it’s like, oh well. Avoiding spoilers, I will say that further violence in the story has the same effect. It was like having the television on in the background while I did chores. I followed along with minimal interest.
Anyway, I’m sorry to say this book is a big MEH. However, because Rendell apparently has a huge fan base and a gazillion different novels, I’m not willing to write her off completely. I’ll try another one of her titles. If you have any recommendations for me, please feel free to comment.