Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
|
Loading... A Cold Treachery (original 2005; edition 2005)by Charles Todd
Work InformationA Cold Treachery by Charles Todd (2005)
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.  derailer | Mar 30, 2024 |    ) njcur | Oct 18, 2022 |  ) duchessjlh | Jul 7, 2021 | ) jeanbmac | Jul 28, 2020 | ) ChristopherSwann | May 15, 2020 |
 Traditional mystery lovers who prefer their whodunits enriched with psychological insight will heartily embrace Todd's seventh Inspector Rutledge novel (after 2002's A Fearsome Doubt )...As with its predecessors, this novel is imbued with tragic sadness, and Rutledge's struggle with his own demons serves as a moving counterpoint to the searing pain of other characters trapped by circumstances or emotions beyond their control. Perhaps this superb effort will bring Todd an audience to match the deserved critical acclaim he has received. Belongs to Series
Fiction.
Mystery.
Thriller.
Historical Fiction.
HTML:??Stunning . . . the tragic sweep of Todd??s historical mysteries grows more expansive with each novel.???The New York Times Book Review Called out into the teeth of a violent blizzard, Inspector Ian Rutledge faces one of the most savage murders he??s ever encountered. He might have expected such unspeakable carnage on the World War I battlefields where he??d lost much of his soul??and his sanity??but not in an otherwise peaceful farm kitchen in remote Urskdale. Someone has murdered the Elcott family without the least sign of struggle. But when the victims are tallied, the local police are in for another shock: One child is missing. Now the Inspector must race to save a young boy before he??s silenced by the merciless elements??or the even colder hands of the killer who hides in the blinding snow. Praise for A Cold Treachery ??Todd??s Ian Rutledge mysteries are among the most intelligent and affecting being written these days.???Washington Post Book World ??Brilliant.???Chicago Tribune ??Traditional mystery lovers who prefer their whodunits enriched with psychological insight will heartily embrace A Cold Treachery. . . . A superb effort.???Publishers Weekly (starred review) ??Brilliantly conceived and elegantly executed.???Strand magazine No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.88)
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wikipedia in English (1)
1
KIRKUS:
Who will find ten-year-old Josh Robinson first, the killer who slaughtered the rest of his family or Scotland Yard’s Inspector Ian Rutledge and his familiar ghost Hamish?
Urksdale is unprepared for the carnage at the Elcott farm, where most of the family lies dead, apparently without a struggle. When Inspector Rutledge arrives, he finds most of the Lake District village searching for young Josh, who either escaped the massacre or caused it. Put up at the local B&B, where he’s drawn to the wheelchair-bound caretaker Miss Fraser, Rutledge learns of the complex beginning to the Elcott marriage. Thinking herself a widow whose husband Hugh Robinson was missing in action, Grace married Gerald. Then Hugh returned and agreed to let his pregnant former wife and two children stay with Gerald. But now Hugh, distraught over the loss of his family and the presumption that his son Josh is responsible, attempts suicide, while Grace’s sister Janet, who has reasons of her own to want her sister dead, insists that Grace was terrified of Gerald’s brother Paul. Intent on finding Josh before he freezes to death, Rutledge begins climbing the Fells as the ghost of Hamish, the soldier he was forced to execute in the Great War, struggles to point him toward the truth.
A slow beginning and melodramatic trappings put this a notch below Todd’s most compelling work. Nonetheless, Rutledge and Hamish (A Fearsome Doubt, 2002, etc.) remain two of fiction’s best antiwar spokesmen.