Note: the title of the 21st book in Charles Todd's Ian Rutledge Series, The Black Ascot, is a reference to the 1910 Royal Ascot Race Meeting. The Royal Ascot Racing Grounds were founded in 1711 by Queen Anne, and the annual meet is patronized by British royalty and aristocracy as one of the premiere social and fashion events of the year. But the 1910 race meeting, following just after the death of King Edward VII, when the nation was still in official mourning, became known as the "Black Ascot" because all of the attendees showed up dressed in black.
A grateful ex-convict provides Detective Inspector Ian Rutledge with information about a recent sighting of Alan Barrington, a murder suspect who has eluded Scotland Yard for eleven years. Rutledge is skeptical but eventually decides to pass on this tip to his superior, Chief Superintendent Jameson. Jameson is an old fashioned copper and neither likes nor trusts Rutledge, who is upper class and has education and social connections --- and who still suffers from the traumatic after affects of his experiences in the Great War.
Jameson assigns Rutledge the task of reviewing the Barrington case files one more time. Alan Barrington was one of a group of Oxford students who courted Blanche Richmond. Blanche married Barrington's close friend, Mark Thorne, who made a career in banking. But Thorne lost all his money, and his clients' money, in a series of bad investments, and killed himself. Alan Barrington became obssessed with the idea that Mark had been set up with bad advice, and deliberately ruined by a man who coveted his wife, Blanche. When Blanche subsequently married Harold Fletcher-Monro, Barrington was suspected of tampering with Fletcher-Munro's automobile, on the day of the Black Ascot. Driving home after the race, Fletcher-Munro lost control of the car on a clear, straight stretch of country road, veered into a copse of trees, and crashed.
Although Fletcher-Munro suffered crippling injuries, it was Blanche who died. The police concluded Barrington tampered with the car with the intention of causing the accident, but he fled the country before he could be arrested, and despite all their efforts, the police were never able to trace him.
Rutledge decides he needs to find out more about Barrington. He's convinced the man could not have disappeared so thoroughly and for so long without assistance. So he begins to interview Barrington's friends and associates.
When he returns to London, Rutledge answers a knock on the door of his flat and a gun explodes in his face. He is rushed to the hospital, but when he regains consciousness he can't remember anything of the incident. But a service revolver is found on the doorstep. Coupled with his suspicions that Rutledge has been covering up recurring episodes of shell shock from the war, Jameson assumes Rutledge failed at an attempt at suicide. At that time, shell shock was seen as a sign of cowardice, and suicide as a disgrace. Jameson suspends Rutledge from duty, officially to allow him time to recuperate, but really as a prelude to a forced resignation one the furor had died down.
The Yard doesn't know everything about Rutledge's shell shock however; they don't know about the voice of the dead soldier that he hears in his head. But the ghost of Hamish accompanies Rutledge everywhere, sometimes friend, sometimes enemy, but always present and commenting on Rutledge's investigations.
Rutledge knows the only possible way to save his job is to find Barrington. But now on medial leave, he must work alone and with time running out, to find answers.
Fans of Ian Rutledge know that Charles Todd is a pen name for an American mother and son writing team. The Todds' breadth of knowledge about World War I and its aftermath for Britain is extraordinary, particularly the war's insidious effects on the soldiers who fought it and the country they returned to. Another author with similar insight into the experience of the Great War is Jacqueline Winspear, author of the Maisie Dobbs Series.
Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.
Click HERE to read the review from Criminal Element.com.
Cliick HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.
Click HERE to read the review from the New York Journal of Books.
