This may be my favorite Ian Rutledge book yet. The crime he solves is very interesting and there are some unexpected twists and turns. Rutledge's character is well-written in this one and the reader can get a sense of the zeal for justice that he has. He seems like such a pleasant person it is...
Bess Crawford is an independent, self-assured nurse working for the Nursing Service during WW I. She is asked to take a patient, Sgt Jason Wilkins to an awards ceremony hosted by King George himself. Unknown to Bess, Jason Wilkins has his own reasons for asking Bess to escort him. Not only does ...
A fascinating glimpse into the early life of Bess Crawford, the WWI nurse of the Charles Todd series. Bess and her parents are living in India, and the family is friendly with the local ruler and his wife. Bess is summoned home from an unauthorized visit to a local fortune teller, who ominously w...
After reading the previous book in this series, A Cold Treachery, I was interested to see where Inspector Ian Rutledge's cases would take him next and I decided to jump right in and read the next book in the series. After all, it was already on my Kindle waiting for me, just a click away.We first...
“Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake,Out in the trench with three hours' watch to take,I blunder through the splashing mirk; and thenHear the gruff muttering voices of the menCrouching in cabins candle-chinked with light.Hark! There's the big bombardment on our rightRumbling and bumpin...
Legacy of the Dead is the fourth in Charles Todd's Inspector Ian Rutledge series. This is an intelligently written, literate series about a veteran of the trench warfare in France during World War I who, after the war, is trying to pick up the pieces of his life and his career at Scotland Yard. B...
Bestselling author Charles Todd has earned a special place among mystery’s elite writers with his acclaimed series featuring Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, a former soldier seeking to lay to rest the demons of his past in the aftermath of World War I. But that past bleeds into the present ...
In his latest novel, bestselling author Charles Todd brings his classic mystery series to a new level of intensity and intrigue. The year is 1919, and Ian Rutledge is a fragile yet courageous former soldier searching for his place in a postwar world. Now a Scotland Yard investigator, Rutledge is ...
Search the Dark is the third in author Charles Todd's excellent Inspector Ian Rutledge series, and, in my view, it is the best so far. Several other entries have followed this one and I will be interested to read them later to see just where the series goes. But not for a while, I think. After re...
For a long time I assumed that I did not like historical crime fiction. So it’s taken me a quite a while to get around to reading this novel, the first in a series set in post World War I England featuring a war veteran, Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard. Charles Todd (an American mother an...
I sat up with a start, dressed hastily, and removed the chair from my door. Peregrine Graham was asleep across the threshold of the outer door, and the instant he heard me, he opened his eyes and stared at me as if he hardly knew me. “I’m awake.” “I’m cold. I want my tea. Will you let me prepare ...
It was what I had wanted from the moment in Eastbourne when I felt well enough to consider my future. Had Simon pulled strings to make this possible? I couldn’t imagine my mother and father having a change of heart. And what ...
It was on a street of small bungalows, many of them late Victorian. No one answered his door, and so Rutledge waited for Wade to come home. Two hours later, a young man with very fair hair and a slim build came down the street whistling to himself, ...
It was the only way I could refuse Diana’s repeated invitations to go out to dine without explaining that I was confined to quarters. And Mrs. Hennessey had asked me if I’d care to go with her to market, to see what we might find for the evening meal. “You must eat, Bess. ...
But there was much to do the morning after the party, and I couldn’t leave all of that to my mother and Nell. And I was waiting for news of Helen Calder. Diana had promised to find out what she could. Simon had driven Melinda Crawford to the train and my mother had taken the last of the chicken, ...
She glanced up, greeted me, and then looked more closely. “My dear, are you ill?” I smiled and admitted that I’d slept poorly. “Not worrying still about your cousin, are you? He’s coming along famously.” &nb...
“I see that that’s news.” “I didn’t think they had died on the same day. I went to Somerset House.” “They didn’t. Fowler’s father died at the scene, and his mother two days later. Young Fowler himself was in hospital for six months, first with stab ...
He had had to stop for an hour’s rest somewhere in the New Forest, pulling to the side of the road in an effort to rest his eyes. The night sounds around him were soothing, and he had slept instead. For a wonder Hamish was quiet. He had been busy ever since Rutledge had left Chaswell, taking adva...
The easy, relaxed sleeper enjoying the sun and a warm breeze was very different from a stiff, angular corpse. She had been dead some time, in fact, I realized as I got within a few feet of her. Rigor mortis had set in but not faded yet. A pretty girl, long dark hair spread under her head and acro...
Warren had had nearly ten days to solve the first murder and four to tackle the second. That in itself was trying; add to it the necessity of calling in the Yard, and the man had every reason to feel he had failed in the eyes of his own Chief Constable. “Do you think the k...
I apologized profusely, telling her that I must have left one of my gloves by my chair. Trusting soul that she was, she held the door wide and said, “I don’t remember seeing anything on the floor, but then my eyes aren’t what they once were. Do come in and look, my dear.” ...
Nothing had changed. Lydia had asked Daisy to bring tea, and now she was coaxing her mother-in-law to drink a little. Gran stood behind Mrs. Ellis’s chair, a frown on her face, and something in her eyes that disturbed me. Margaret and Henry sat in a corner talking in low voices. I could see that ...
Major Clayton was dead. He’d been in hospital outside London since the closing days of the war, fighting a different battle. Sometimes winning. More often than not losing. They had kept in touch until three months before, when Clayton had been too ill to write, and his sister had been too distres...
“Come,” the Acting Chief Superintendent said, his tone of voice indicating that he was busy. Rutledge stepped inside the door. “Inspector Rutledge reporting, sir,” he said when Markham didn’t immediately look up. When he did, he pushed back his chai...
The long golden rays of the setting sun touched them with brightness, but it was only a shallow reflection, not the lamplight he had hoped to see. He couldn’t bring himself to walk up to the door. She was in good hands, wherever she was. He could only wish her a speedy rec...
While laughing with her, he found himself remembering Miss Tattersall with her red-rimmed eyes, calmly accepting it as her duty to answer his questions to the best of her ability. He assured Jean that on the contrary, it have been a dull inquiry that had dragged on too long. He’d learned early on...