Similarly, the mentally challenged young man named Will (and his aunt Becky) have an interesting relationship in that Will's parents died when he was quite young and Becky is the only one with much interest in him. The painful and poignant development of their co-dependency is one of the more touching aspects of the story. The Rottweiler isn't really a detective story, in that the only detectives are of the bumbling, plodding variety and nobody really finds out much of anything. In truth, it isn't really even reminiscent of Gosford Park, in which the cops were bumblers but at least somebody was searching for the truth. Here the characters are all far too preoccupied by their own personal problems to be particularly interested in the identity of the potential serial killer in their midst.

What Rendell manages to do, however, is key in on that basic premise, so often illustrated in regard to serial killers or mass murderers: so often the neighbors had no idea that the "nice guy" next door was really something quite different. They're so busy going about their own lives and affairs that they don't really regard the death on the doorstep to be much more than a minor curiosity to be remarked upon like you would the weather before moving on to more pressing matters. And I think she captures the essence of that reality with her interwoven storyline, be it of Will's trip to the movies with a young woman who thinks he's handsome, Inez' maudlin trips down memory lane with the videos of her deceased actor husband, or the latest installment in the daily Zeinab saga. The characters are, ultimately, just ordinary folks leading ordinary lives - ordinary, that is, save for the serial killer living in their midst. Readers hungry for the pure hard-boiled detective tales of Chandler or Hammett (or even Christie) are likely to be disappointed by The Rottweiler; those engaged by thoughtful storytelling with a backdrop of murder may find it to be an engaging study in character and culture with enough suspense to keep the story moving briskly along.