Just Finished Reading Master of the Moor by Ruth Rendell

Master of the Moor is a 1982 mystery novel by English writer Ruth Rendell, who passed away in 2015 and was one of the greats in that genre.  I was more attuned to her renowned Inspector Wexford series of whodunnit novels, and he appears fleetingly near the beginning of this story as well...I kept expecting him to resurface later in the book and solve everything.  Instead, in Master of the Moor Rendell presents the narrative and unfolds the mystery through the experiences and thoughts of its protagonist, nature writer Stephen Walby.  Stephen, to the consternation of his affection-starved wife Lyn who wants to live in the city, insists they remain near his childhood home on the edge of the area's vast moor, about which he entertains an extreme fascination.  He is also obsessed with his ancestry, believing himself to be the illegitimate descendant of an earlier famous writer.  One evening as he is making one of his frequent walks through the moor he discovers the murdered body of a young woman, her hair sheared off from her head.  He reports his find to the police, who grill him as if he were the suspect.  The mystery takes off from here...this isn't the last killing in the story...and Stephen reveals more and more about himself, the moor, and his close relatives...including his manipulative father...

I thought Master of the Moor was one of Rendell's best stories and feel it had a great deal of psychological depth.  I thought the ending was nothing short of brilliant and climactic, and the author deftly planted a strong false lead to distract me from what was really going down.  I'm sad that Ruth Rendell will no longer be writing any more mystery yarns, but I have a lot of catching up to do anyway with her prolific output over the decades.  On to the next Rendell novel!