A False Mirror

This is another clever mystery from Charles Todd. I have to keep reminding myself that the authors are actually American since they write as if English, born and bred. The style and pacing of their novels are very British and the historical background of post First World war Britain is fascinating. One of the reasons I like these books so much is that I love the character Inspector Ian Rutledge. Mystery writers have been creating these personalities for years and it must be a challenge to develope someone new and interesting. Yet they have succeeded with Rutledge, a man haunted by the horror of the battlefields, and who sometimes questions his own right to existence. He is suffering from shell shock and ill health at a time when many show more equated shell shock with cowardice. At times Rutledge isn't sure himself and through out solving his cases he hears the voice of a particular man whom he shot for cowardice and failing to carry out orders in the war. The voice both haunts him and invades his mind to the extent that he sometimes answers out loud.
The cases themselves are very British, rife with class divisions and tradition. Yet WWI changed England forever and those class divisions were now very much in transition. Rutledge is dealing with a changing society as well as attempting to do his job despite his physical and mental weaknesses. Enjoy. show less

Another winner - I really didn't see the ending coming. Interesting take on small towns and gossip. Hamish continues to be Insp. Rutledge's conscience and warning radar and Chief Supt. Bowles continues to be a huge thorn in his side.

The Todd's 9th installment of the Rutledge series starts out with a "Keystone Kops-like" police search for a killer in London. A rather off-putting beginning to this eventually good book about the "ultimate plod" Inspector Ian Rutledge. With his personal demon, Cpl Hamish, kibitzing in the background, Rutledge sorts out a series of murders in bucolic Hampton Regis.

Good one! Wonderful narrator. We enjoyed this. Great characters and sense of place, the things I really look for in a book. Good mystery, surprising ending to me.

And yet again Charles Todd has outwitted me. It was one or the other and I picked the wrong one again but was not even sure of that until the very end. Another excellent Rutledge...and on to number 10, maybe I'll be right this time!!

Another enjoyable mystery by this author. First time listening to him as an audiobook and it still works well, although I found Hamish harder to understand but I still like the alter ego. Kept me guessing till the end.

I found this one to be a slighter effort with a very flat ending. I am ready for less Hamish and for Routledge to start dating Meredith Channing.