The bed was neatly made, and the woman on top neatly strangled.

According to all accounts, Angela Hathall was deeply in love with her husband and far too paranoid to invite an unknown person into their home. So who managed to gain entry and strangle her without a struggle? That is the problem facing Inspector Wexford in Shake Hands Forever. Perhaps it was the mystery woman who left her fingerprints on the Hathall's bathtub? Perhaps it was Angela's husband who lied about a stolen library book? And why was the Hathall home, usually so unkempt, exqisitely clean the day of Angela's death? Then a neighbor--friendly, knowing, disarmingly beautiful--offers Wexford her assistance. And what begins as a rather tricky case turns into an obsession that threatens to destroy the Inspector's career--as well as his marriage.

Published
January 1, 1975
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Ruth Rendell

Ruth Rendell (born February 17, 1930, South Woodford, Essex, England—died May 2, 2015, London) was a British writer of mystery novels, psychological crime novels, and short stories who was perhaps best known for her novels featuring Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford.Rendell initially worked as a reporter and copy editor for West Essex newspapers. Her first novel, From Doon with Death (1964), introduced Wexford, the clever chief inspector of a town in southeastern England, and his more stodgy associate Mike Burden. The pair appear in more than 20 additional novels of police procedure.In time Rendell’s psychological thrillers, which present the…