Simisola: The Ruth Rendell Mystery (1995)

A particularly gritty and tough episode from Ruth Rendell's Inspector Reg Wexford series, Simisola begins with the bearish Scots detective receiving some good medical news from his Nigerian physician. Unfortunately, Wexford can't do the same when the doctor and his wife report the disappearance of their daughter. Seemingly related murders of two women, and the severe beating of a third, in Wexford's Sussex country town of Kingsmarkham do nothing to clarify what happened to the missing girl and, much to Wexford's dismay, exacerbate racist tensions rumbling beneath the investigation. Actor George Baker, who has been playing the civilized and often unflappable Wexford in television dramas since 1988, is wonderful here, counterpointing the detective's natural politesse with droll asides and clipped impatience with self-important witnesses. Rendell's attack on a loophole in British immigration laws (essentially sanctioning modern slavery) is startling but does not overwhelm Simisola's entertaining police procedural. --Tom Keogh Amazon.com

you can't go wrong!

a fantastic programme! Wexford has to deal with political correctness and racism in this very gripping movie. He is personally brought into this when his Nigerian doctors' own daughter Melanie disappears off the face of the earth. Her disappearance un-earths a much more disturbing and horrifying custom at work than even he realised in todays modern times.
well worth watching - put the kids to bed at 7.00pm and settle down for the night with this one. December 7, 2003

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