Shake Hands Forever

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Shake Hands Forever
Author	Ruth Rendell
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Inspector Wexford #9
Genre(s)	Crime, Mystery novel
Publisher	Hutchinson
Publication date	25 April 1975
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	215 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-09-122760-7 (first edition, hardback)
Preceded by	The Face of Trespass
Followed by	A Demon in my View

Shake Hands Forever is a novel by British writer Ruth Rendell. It is the 9th entry in her popular Inspector Wexford series.

[edit] Plot summary

Most people would have screamed. Mrs Hathall made no sound. She had seen death many times before, but she had never before seen a death by violence. Heavily, she plodded across the room and descended the stairs to where her son waited. 'There's been an accident,' she said. 'Your wife's dead.'Chief Inspector Wexford could discover no motive, no reason, no suspect - all he had were his own intuitive suspicions. Probably he was reading meaning where there was none; probably Angela Hathall really had picked up a stranger, and that stranger had killed her. But why such doubt? Was Wexford becoming cynical and untrusting - or was this simply one of the most ingenious crimes he had ever tackled?

v • d • e Ruth Rendell — The Inspector Wexford Novels From Doon with Death • Wolf to the Slaughter • A New Lease of Death • The Best Man to Die • A Guilty Thing Surprised • No More Dying Then • Murder Being Once Done • Some Lie and Some Die • Shake Hands Forever • A Sleeping Life • Put on by Cunning • The Speaker of Mandarin • An Unkindness of Ravens • The Veiled One • Kissing the Gunner's Daughter • Simisola • Road Rage • Harm Done • The Babes in the Wood • End in Tears • Not in the Flesh