Ram with red horns

the long version

It may be true that, in the words of the Bard, "Murder will out," but that doesn't mean anyone will care. This is what Rhonwen, the heroine of Rhys Davies's last novel Ram with Red Horns, discovers after she pushes her philandering husband off a cliff. So prim and proper is Rhonwen that everyone in the Welsh village where she lives assumes the death was an accident. There things might have rested if the widow, suddenly overcome with guilt, hadn't started imagining a large ram with red horns and evil eyes following her about. Leave it to Rhys Davies to eschew the obvious. Instead of constructing a dark tale of murder and gnawing guilt, he has fashioned a dark comedy. When Rhonwen finally decides that confession is good for the soul, she finds nobody in the village wants to hear about it. Apparently there's a statute of limitations on wrong deeds: after a certain amount of time, the truth becomes too inconvenient to know. A masterful mix of funny and grim, Ram with Red Horns is a fine example what the late Davies did so well.