Crime novels, once a name is established, should be a dream to sell as, on the whole, the writers are an unusually consistent bunch. A reader approaching that section in a shop can put out a confident hand to a familiar name…. The quality of the book may vary a little within the oeuvre of a writer but the kind of crime and the style of the novel rarely do. Ruth Rendell, however, is an exception to this rule because there is Ruth Rendell the detective writer and Ruth Rendell the psychological thriller writer, and there is no relationship between the two. I am pleased to announce that her new novel, Master of the Moor, is one of the latter.

The story opens with our central character, Stephen Whalby, finding the body of a strangled girl with a shorn head on his beloved Vangmoor. The moor is part...