A Fearsome Doubt

Starred review from September 2, 2002
This brilliant and gripping whodunit may well be the best of Todd's six Rutledge novels (Watchers of Time, etc.). Featuring as its protagonist a Scotland Yard inspector who is among the walking wounded after his WWI traumas, the series has always been compelling. This time, Todd ratchets up the psychological pressures by raising doubts about the one aspect of Rutledge's life that he has felt secure about: his prewar accomplishments as a policeman. The widow of a convicted killer, who went to the gallows for preying on the infirm elderly, confronts him with a missing jewelry piece found in a neighbor's possession, suggesting that Rutledge helped execute an innocent man. Reopening the inquiry requires caution not only because of the soul-searching it provokes, which threatens to shatter the inspector's tenuous grasp on sanity, but also because the case contributed to his superior's promotion. This old mystery becomes only one of the puzzles Rutledge must resolve when he's ordered to investigate the poisoning deaths of three disabled soldiers. The solutions to both sets of crimes are logical, satisfying and unexpected, but it is the character of Rutledge himself—intuitive, exquisitely sensitive to mood, the emotions of others and the significance of what is left unsaid—that makes this both an outstanding historical mystery and literate period fiction. Agent, Jane Chelius. (Oct. 8)FYI:The revelation a couple of books back that Todd is the pseudonym of a mother-son writing team has had no discernible impact on sales. For fans it seems to have been a nonissue.

September 1, 2002
Todd's sixth work featuring Inspector Ian Rutledge is a well-crafted addition to his popular historical series (e.g., Watchers of Time). Rutledge is taken aback when a persistent Nell Shaw brings him new evidence that could clear her late husband's name. Had Rutledge and his fellow policemen inadvertently sent an innocent man to his death six years earlier? Reconsidering the pre-World War I case serves to distract the inspector from his current assignment: determining who is killing maimed ex-soldiers in the peaceful countryside in Kent. Rutledge is sidetracked as well by his friendship with Elizabeth Mayhew, the widow of an old school chum. Elizabeth's feelings for a mysterious stranger further complicate Rutledge's investigation. Todd expertly demonstrates how shadows from the past intersect with unsolved murders in the present, revealing tantalizing details about Rutledge's wartime experience in France along the way. Here, Todd downplays the role of Hamish (the dead soldier who lives on in Rutledge's mind), but he remains a key player in the series. A pleasure to read; highly recommended for all public libraries and collections of historical mysteries.-Laurel Bliss, Yale Arts Lib.

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2002
Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge may be the only sleuth in detective-fiction history to have a ghost as his sidekick. Hamish MacLeod, late of the Scottish brigade, whom Rutledge ordered executed for insubordination during the Great War, provides acerbic commentary on Rutledge's actions and thoughts, effectively underscoring Rutledge's psychological torment. Rutledge's habitual angst is stretched to the breaking point in the latest in this series, when the inspector has reason to fear that he sent the wrong man to the gallows seven years before, in 1912. The hanged man's widow presents Rutledge with new evidence that seems to place the blame on another serial killer. Fearing for his sanity, Rutledge must examine the new evidence and investigate the murder of two ex-soldiers in Kent. Both sets of serial killings become eerily intermeshed. Todd skillfully interweaves an acute psychological portrait with a compelling puzzle. Intelligent and intense history-mystery, at the level of Anne Perry and Bruce Alexander.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)