The Gate Keeper by Charles Todd

The Gate Keeper: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery by Charles Todd --- 306 pages

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.

Pale Guardian by Barbara Hambly

Pale Guardian: A James Asher Vampire Novel by Barbara Hambly --- 248 pages.

Barbara Hambly is a prolific author of fantasy, horror, historical and mystery fiction.  Although I'm not generally a fan of horror fiction, her James Asher series caught my interest from the first book, Those Who Hunt the Night, and continues to enthrall with this, the seventh book in the series.

The series began at the turn of the previous century, featuring James Asher, an Oxford philologist who has a second, top secret career as an agent provocateur  for the British Secret Service; and his wife Lydia, an early feminist who horrifies her wealthy, aristocratic family by pursuing a medical degree and an interest in researching glandular and blood disorders.

Pale Guardian picks up where the last book, Darkness on His Bones  left off. World War I has begun. James is convalescing in England from the pneumonia that nearly killed him, and Lydia is a volunteer working at a medical station on the front lines in France. The vampire Don Simon Ysidro, disguised as a British colonel on special assignment, is fulfilling his promise to watch over Lydia's safety.

Every vampire in Europe is haunting the battlefields and casualty tents; but Lydia soon discovers that even worse creatures called revenants have appeared, a contagion that infects anyone who is exposed to their blood. Revenants attack and devour both the living and the Undead. They have a kind of hive mind and hunt in packs. And there are those on both sides of the battle who think they can control the creatures and use them as weapons to destroy their enemies.

Asher and Lydia must make a devil's bargain with the vampires to prevent this madness. Don Simon as always is their ally. The World War I setting creates a chilling tale of the evil that men do in pursuit of victory at any cost.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Darkness On His Bones: A James Asher Vampire Novel by Barbara Hambly --- 250 pages

July 1914: Lydia Asher receives a cable from the British Embassy in Paris. “James Asher met with accident last night stop critical condition Hospital Saint Antoine stop.”

Lydia finds Paris on the verge of panic. Archduke Francis Ferdinand has been assassinated, the city is rife with rumors of a German invasion. Hospitals are barely staffed, medicines unavailable, in the rush to prepare for war. No one seems to know why James was in the bell tower of the ancient church of St. Clare or how he fell --- or why his throat and arms are punctured with multiple wounds --- but Lydia can't wait for him to wake from his coma and explain. She knows about James' top secret work for British Intelligence. She wastes no time sending for the one man who can help, the only man who will help: the vampire Don Simon Xavier Christian Morado de la Cadena-Ysidro.

While Lydia retraces James' footsteps during the day, Don Simon stands guard at his bedside by night, and together they piece together the puzzle of his actions prior to his accident.

Meanwhile the unconscious James experiences strange and disturbing dreams. Old memories are entangled with recollections of recent danger.  Past betrayals appear to be repeating themselves. The German invaders are exploiting rivalries among the vampires of Paris, searching for a powerful talisman that will allow them to use the vampires to win dominion.  Don Simon knows how it almost happened before. Now it is happening again. The hunt for the Facinum, the talisman of mastery, and the Chapel of Bones. Whoever controls them will be Master of All.

The sixth book in the James Asher Vampire Series is another riveting tale from Hambly.  Read them in order starting with Those Who Hunt the Night for the maximum enjoyment.

Click HERE to read the review from Publisher's Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Intravenous Magazine.com.

Wings of Fire by Charles Todd

Wings of Fire: A Novel by Charles Todd (Inspector Rutledge Mysteries, Book 2) --- 306 pages

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.

A Test of Wills: A Mystery by Charles Todd

A Test of Wills: A Mystery by Charles Todd --- 282 pages

This is the first book in the critically acclaimed Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery series set in post World War I Britain, written by the American mother-and-son team of Caroline and Charles Todd, who publish under the pseudonym Charles Todd.

In many ways it's an old-fashioned mystery story eschewing explicit violence, sex and language.  In other ways it's a subtle psychological portrait --- not of the murderer as one might expect --- but of the Inspector, a survivor of four years in the trenches, suffering from what was then called "shell shock" (we know it today as post-traumatic stress disorder).

It s 1919, and the war has been won. Or at least people tell themselves that it's been won. But there is no happy homecoming for Inspector Ian Rutledge, who has spent months in hospital, shell-shocked and locked in a mortal embrace with the pitiless voice of Corporal Hamish McLeod, one of his men whom he had to execute for refusing an order during battle, under the pitiless military code of the time.

When his fiancee deserts him, Rutledge decides that the only way to save his sanity is to escape into his work. He conceals his fragile mental condition, and manages to get his old job and rank back at Scotland Yard. But Superintendent Bowles, his previous superior, is still jealous of Rutledge's brilliant pre-war reputation, still determined to destroy his career.  

Bowles sends Rutledge to investigates the murder of a popular colonel in Warwickshire but neglects to mention that the chief suspect in the case is a decorated war hero who has been received at Court and lauded by the Royal family.

The case is a political minefield. Charging a popular war hero with murder will create a storm of notoriety around the Inspector. Regardless of whether the trial results in a judgment of guilt or innocence, the political consequences will demand a scapegoat --- and who better than a war-damaged investigator who has lost his nerve?

Even worse, the crucial witness who can make or break his case is a another veteran suffering from severe shell shock that has never been recognized or treated. And as Hamish's voice eagerly points out, that grim fate could easily become Rutledge's own.

Click HERE for a review from Kirkus.

Click HERE for a review from the Paradise Mysteries blog.

Click HERE for a review from Bookotron.com.

Search The Dark by Charles Todd

Search The Dark: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery by Charles Todd --- 279 pages

Inspector Ian Rutledge is haunted by the horrors he witnessed on the battlefields of the Great War. Lurking in his head he hears the voice of Corporal Hamish MacLeod, a young soldier he was forced by the brutal military code to execute for refusing a direct order in battle. How long, he wonders, before that judgment rebounds on him?

Meanwhile, Rutledge tries desperately to pick up the pieces of his former job as a Scotland Yard Inspector. A dead woman and two missing children bring him to Dorset and the small town of Singleton Magna. Rutledge is dismayed to find another tormented war veteran is the chief suspect in the death of the woman, found lying in a field with her face battered beyond recognition. But the local police have failed to find the two small children supposed to have been with the woman, so Rutledge has been sent to assist with the search.

The local police Inspector believes that the ex-soldier saw the woman and the children from the train as he passed through Singleton Magna, and recognized his wife and children, presumed dead in a German bomb attack on London during the war. He was seen and heard searching for them and threatening his wife for deceiving him, so when the woman's body was discovered, the police arrested him.

But Rutledge realizes there are many discrepancies in the evidence. He questions whether the dead woman was really the man's wife, and whether there were ever any children present at all.  When another battered body is found buried in an isolated spot unlikely to be known to anyone without detailed local knowledge, Rutledge is convinced these murders have a local context that has to do with the private lives of the local gentry, who are not above using their privileged positions to interfere with the investigation for their own purposes. Someone is protecting a murderer. And an innocent man, undone by war and grief, will hang unless Rutledge can bring the crime home to the real killer.

The third book in the Ian Rutledge series, for those fascinated by World War One and its reverberating impact on the lives of those who survived the war only to be wrecked on the shores of a dark and desperate peace. Fans of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs  and Anne Perry's William and Hester Monk series may enjoy this.

Click HERE to read the review from Publisher's Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

A Fine Summer's Day by Charles Todd

A Fine Summer's Day: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery by Charles Todd --- 358 pages

Charles Todd is the pseudonym of a mother-and-son writing team that have produced sixteen critically acclaimed historical mysteries about Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, who returns from the trenches of the Great War suffering from amnesia and severe shell shock - what we now know as post traumatic stress disorder - and desperately tries to reclaim his sanity and previous career at Scotland Yard. In each book Rutledge is set to solve a murder that requires him to confront ghosts from the past that continue to haunt him.

Now in the seventeenth book in the series, the authors have written a prequel, allowing us to see Rutledge when he was young and undamaged in mind and body, filled with hopes for a future with the sweetheart he adored. And all the while he is working to solve a series of seemingly unrelated murders spread across England. The method is similar in each case, but the victims seem to have nothing in common. Only by defying his superior, doggedly following his own instinct,s and ignoring the siren call to arms, does Rutledge finally discover the motive, and thus the identity, of the murderer.

A gift to fans of the series and a wonderful place to start for readers who are meeting Ian Rutledge for the first time.

Click HERE to read the New York Times review of A Fine Summer's Day.

Click HERE to visit the author's web site and view a timeline of the series with short descriptions of each book in sequence.

The Empire of Night by Robert Olen Butler

The Empire of Night: A Christopher Marlowe Cobb Thriller by Robert Olen Butler --- 401 pages

Robert Olen Butler is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who teaches creative writing at Florida State University. This is the third in his series of historical thrillers set during World War I and continues the adventures of "Kit" Cobb, an American journalist who's been recruited as an undercover agent by high ranking government officials who want America in the war before the German military machine can annihilate the British.

Kit, who survived the Mexican Civil War in his debut, The Hot Country, and the sinking of the Lusitania in The Star of Istanbul, is now tasked with outing Sir Albert Stockman, a British aristocrat who is suspected of secretly working with the Germans to undermine the British war effort with an aerial bombing campaign aimed at London. To make this assignment even more complicated, Kit's mercurial mother, the distinguished American actress Isabel Cobb, is having an affair with Sir Albert. Although each novel can be enjoyed on its own, I would recommend reading them all in sequence.

Click HERE to read a review form the Tampa Bay Times.

Click HERE to read a review from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune.

Click HERE to listen to a podcast of Robert Olen Butler talking about The Empire of Night.

The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

The Care and Management of Lies: A Novel of the Great War by Jacqueline Winspear --- 319 pages

This year begins the centenary commemoration of the First World War, known initially as the "Great War," and "the War to End All War" to those who fought and to those who held things together at home until a little more than twenty years later the maelstrom of war swept over them again.

There will be many books and films produced over the next few years that will revisit the events of 1914-1918 and try to make sense of what happened --- hindsight can provide insights that are obscured by the confusion and stress of living through cataclysmic events.

Winspear says she has been thinking about this book for many years. Her interest in World War I began as a child and was rooted in her relationship to her grandfather, a veteran who, despite severe injuries, survived against the odds, came home and made a life for himself and his family.

The book is about two friends, Kezia and Thea. Kezia marries Thea's brother, Tom, and joins him in running the prosperous family farm. Thea has left the farm behind and teaches in a girls' school in London, where she becomes involved in the fight for women's suffrage. When war is declared, just a month after the wedding, Thea is drawn into the pacifist protests. Tom and Kezia must cope with new wartime regulations and find workers to replace the young men who go off in a burst of patriotism to fight. Nobody expects the war to last long --- the men will all be home by Christmas, surely.

But the war drags on. Tom decides he must enlist, leaving Kezia, with his old foreman to help her, to cope with the farm.  Thea, afraid she may be arrested for treason because of her involvement with the pacifists, decides to volunteer as an ambulance driver on the front.

Winspear has written a quiet but powerful story of ordinary people trying to cope in extraordinary times, and how simple acts of love and friendship helped them remain sane amid the chaos and brutality of battle, and the anxiety and exhaustion at home.

Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the Maisie Dobbs series, featuring a World War I nurse turned private investigator.

Click HERE to visit her web site.

Click HERE to read the author discussing The Care and Management of Lies.