Hunting shadows: an Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

It's the summer of 1920, and Scotland Yard's Inspector Ian Rutledge has a tricky case on his hands. Someone has murdered two men in the city of Ely in Cambridgeshire. Try as he might, Rutledge can't seem to find any connection between the victims a military man from out of town and a local political candidate although it does appear that the killer is a sharpshooter, a fact that does not sit well with Rutledge, a war veteran himself, or with Hamish, Rutledge's interior companion (the manifestation, series fans know, of Rutledge's guilt over the death of a friend in the war). There are a lot of questions, but perhaps the most pressing is whether Rutledge's memories of war, sparked by these recent murders, are distracting annoyances or the key to solving the case? Another well-written, well-plotted entry in this always engaging mystery series.--Pitt, David Copyright 2010 Booklist

Tricky plotting and rich atmospherics ("the Fen country, where water had separated everyone and made foreigners of people ten miles distant") distinguish bestseller Todd's 16th novel featuring Scotland Yard's Insp. Ian Rutledge (after 2013's Proof of Guilt). In September 1920, Rutledge has a real baffler on his hands: a sniper has just killed two seemingly unrelated men in the Fen country of East Anglia. Captain Hutchinson was gunned down as he was about to enter a church for a wedding, and Tory candidate for Parliament Herbert Swift's head was blown off as he began a stump speech. The initial inquiries yielded little and resulted in the locals calling in the Yard, but apart from a woman who claims she saw a monster just as Swift was shot, there isn't much for Rutledge to go on. Todd (the pen name of a mother-son writing team) has rarely been better. Agent: Jane Chelius, Jane Chelius Literary Agency. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

War memories always filter through Inspector Rutledge's consciousness, but World War I rears up again when a sniper ruins a wedding in Ely Cathedral-and the killer doesn't stop at one. This is number 16 for the popular 1920s set series (after Proof of Guilt). [See Prepub Alert, 7/15/13.] (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Inspector Rutledge returns for another painstaking investigation of murders in the aftermath of World War I. When a sharpshooter kills Capt. Gordon Hutchinson at a wedding in Ely, Cambridgeshire, no one in the panicked crowd can tell precisely where the bullet came from. A similar shooting in the neighboring town of Wriston that kills the popular Tory candidate Herbert Swift draws Inspector Ian Rutledge from Scotland Yard. When he first arrives, Rutledge is nearly lost in the marshy Fens until a mysterious man emerges from the mist to steer him toward the hearth of Marcella Trowbridge. Even after Rutledge is able to find his way around by daylight, he's still enshrouded in fog in his attempts to discover if the two murders are related. Reports of a monster behind the rifle that killed the two men, a haunted mill and the mythical Green Man painted on the ceiling of Ely Cathedral lead Rutledge, in a blend of dogged research and intuitive leaps, to a case of two wronged women. But is more than one man exacting revenge? The mother-and-son team Todd (Proof of Guilt, 2013, etc.) may be letting up on their tortured hero: The ghostly voice of Hamish MacLeod, the soldier whom Rutledge had to shoot in the Great War, is a bit less prominent than in earlier installments. Less from ghost Hamish? That change may be as welcome to some fans as to the inspector himself, though others may miss the inspector's invisible partner and conscience.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

It's the summer of 1920, and Scotland Yard's Inspector Ian Rutledge has a tricky case on his hands. Someone has murdered two men in the city of Ely in Cambridgeshire. Try as he might, Rutledge can't seem to find any connection between the victims—a military man from out of town and a local political candidate—although it does appear that the killer is a sharpshooter, a fact that does not sit well with Rutledge, a war veteran himself, or with Hamish, Rutledge's interior companion (the manifestation, series fans know, of Rutledge's guilt over the death of a friend in the war). There are a lot of questions, but perhaps the most pressing is whether Rutledge's memories of war, sparked by these recent murders, are distracting annoyances or the key to solving the case? Another well-written, well-plotted entry in this always engaging mystery series. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

War memories always filter through Inspector Rutledge's consciousness, but World War I rears up again when a sniper ruins a wedding in Ely Cathedral—and the killer doesn't stop at one. This is number 16 for the popular 1920s set series (after Proof of Guilt). [See Prepub Alert, 7/15/13.]

Tricky plotting and rich atmospherics ("the Fen country, where water had separated everyone and made foreigners of people ten miles distant") distinguish bestseller Todd's 16th novel featuring Scotland Yard's Insp. Ian Rutledge (after 2013's Proof of Guilt). In September 1920, Rutledge has a real baffler on his hands: a sniper has just killed two seemingly unrelated men in the Fen country of East Anglia. Captain Hutchinson was gunned down as he was about to enter a church for a wedding, and Tory candidate for Parliament Herbert Swift's head was blown off as he began a stump speech. The initial inquiries yielded little and resulted in the locals calling in the Yard, but apart from a woman who claims she saw a monster just as Swift was shot, there isn't much for Rutledge to go on. Todd (the pen name of a mother-son writing team) has rarely been better. Agent: Jane Chelius, Jane Chelius Literary Agency. (Feb.)