Nobody has a better ear for the whine of the unloved and underappreciated than Ruth Rendell. Early in this Inspector Wexford adventure, a young woman who was bound and gagged during a robbery demands victim counseling; not long after, families of some people taken hostage quickly cluster themselves into a support group. The titular "road rage" is equally timely and politically correct: protestors have gathered from around the world to stop, by whatever means they can, a new motorway that will cut through some of the woods surrounding Wexford's fictional but endearing village of Kingsmarkham.