Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge returns in this second period piece featuring the desolate, shell-shocked survivor of the Great War (World War I). Superintendent Bowles, Rutledge's superior, jealous of his background and abilities, is trying to torpedo his career with the Yard. So while a Ripper-like killer is terrorizing postwar London, Bowles looks for a way to banish Rutledge from the city while Bowles solves the crime and gets the glory. He finds what seems like a heavensent opportunity to send Rutledge on a fool's errand. Lady Rachel Ashford is insisting that Scotland Yard send a man to investigate the proven double suicide of her cousins, Olivia Marlowe and Nicholas Cheney, and the accidental death shortly after of another half-brother, Stephen Fitzhugh, in the seaside village of Borcombe in distant Cornwall.
But what looks straightforward to start begins to unravel as Inspector Rutledge asks his penetrating questions. Soon Rutledge uncovers the sad story of Rosamund Trevelyan, unlucky in love, with her three dead husbands and two dead childen, followed by her own "accidental" demise. And now three more of her grown children have died. Because these deaths happened over many years, the local people never questioned --- but Retledge is questioning now.
Justice demands the truth be found. But what if the truth he finds is even more unbearable than the hell of not knowing? Will the truth bring back the dead, or ease the grief of the survivors? Yet once Rutledge picks up the scent of murder, he is compelled to follow it to the end, driven not just by duty but by a relentless ghost from the past. Daphne DuMaurier eat your heart out!
Click HERE to read the review from Publisher's Weekly.
Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus.
Click HERE to read a review and an interview with the author from Crimepays.com.
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