Number 20 in the long-running historical mystery series by the mother-and-son writing team of Caroline and Charles Todd, two of a very few American writers who can credibly produce a classic British crime novel.
It's December 1920, and after a long day celebrating his sister Frances’ wedding, Inspector Ian Rutledge drives into the night in a forlorn attempt to stave off nightmarish flashbacks of his "bad war" experiences in World War I. Even though the trenches are four years behind him, Rutledge still suffers the effects of trauma. What we know today as PTSD was then called "shell shock," and seen as a stigma and a sign of cowardice to be concealed at all costs.
Then Rutledge runs out of his nightmare and into another in the middle of a quiet country lane where he finds a stopped car, a body, and a young woman whose hands are covered in blood. The victim, Stephen Wentworth, was a quiet but well-respected Navy veteran who came home to run a bookshop he had purchased previously in the ancient Suffolk village of Wolfpit. A gentleman with private means whose family had lived in the area, he had no enemies but no close friends either. The young woman, Elizabeth MacRae, was an acquaintance who sometimes visited her aunt in Wolfpit. Wentworth had escorted her to a dinner party with mutual friends a few miles distant. On their way back to Wolfpit, Miss MacRae claims, a man had stepped in front of the car on a lonely stretch of road, forcing them to stop. When Wentworth got out of the car to ask if the man needed help, the unknown man had shot him point-blank, then turned away and vanished into the darkness, leaving no trace.
Intrigued, Rutledge pulls rank to handle the case himself, cutting out the local man, Inspector Reed, who --- along with the dead man's own parents --- seems to harbor some animus against Wentworth. But he finds few leads in the village, while Inspector Reed and Wentworth's parents do their utmost to impede and hinder his investigation. Then a second local man is murdered in the same manner; again a well-respected gentleman farmer and war veteran. Rutledge is convinced these are not random killings; the murderer is targeting these men for a reason, however obscure.
Rutledge’s investigations take him up one dead end after another, as he methodically sorts through the accumulating evidence. The pieces slowly come together in an unexpected and satisfying solution. The victim, his family, and the supporting cast of characters are as carefully drawn as Rutledge himself, the plot is convoluted yet believable, the setting atmospheric. Another outstanding mystery from Charles Todd.
Click HERE to listen to an interview with Caroline and Charles Todd, authors of The Gate Keeper.
Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.
Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.
Click HERE to read the review from the Criminal Element blog.
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