A Game of Fear: A Novel (Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries, 24) (edition 2022)

The story, prose, characterization, and insight into human nature are all superlative. All are ruined by the execrable proofreading and editing.

It isn't merely a case of typographical errors. It is as though someone transcribed the manuscript with autofill on steroids. "Council" instead of "counsel" is an all-to typical example. Have we no proofreaders, have we no literate people, in this country any more?

There are other cases of paragraphing gone wrong, so much so that the sense is lost. To what or to whom do the pronouns refer? Were the paragraphing correct, there would be no doubt.

Here these people are, drawing big salaries, putting out big-selling books. But their books are riddled with errors that would cause a sixth-grader to fail an English test, in normal times. What the hell? ( )

Inspector Rutledge is sent on yet another eccentric and seemingly impossible case. Lady Benton's story of a murder in her courtyard with disappearing corpse and no evidence left behind is given attention only because she is a personal friend of the Chief Constable. But when further actual crimes follow he is forced to resort to a confidential source higher in the government to discover what is behind the mystery.

Charles Todd A GAME OF FEAR
#24 in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series. In an interview Charles Todd said that Caroline Todd had cowritten this one and a Bess Crawford novel before her death last August. Set in 1921 in Essex, this story is typical of the series. An accurate historical setting for a mystery (did Lady Benton witness a violent murder or is she losing her mind?) with lots of atmosphere and plenty of clues. ( )

The 24th book in the Ian Rutledge series, takes place in 1921. Rutledge, as always is accompanied by the specter of his friend, Hamish, who died in WWI. Hamish serves as Rutledge’s sounding board and conscience. Although Rutledge wasn’t aware of why he had these horrid memories of WWI, today we can see that he suffered from PSTD. Rutledge is called to a small coastal town where a WWI airfield was located. He’s there because a friend of higher-ups in Scotland Yard, Lady Benton, says she saw a murder committed by a dead man. No body was discovered, but as Rutledge wades into the investigation, he discovers there’s murder involved by not done by a dead man. Although there are many different threads spreading out in the story, Todd (the pen name for a mother-son writing team) pulls them all together. Along with all the dead-end leads, Rutledge follows before solving the case, readers learn that his attraction to Kate Gordon continues to grow, as hinted at in previous books. At the end of the book, readers discover that he is being promoted to Chief Inspector, despite the animosity of his boss Markham. In the beginning of the book, readers are told of the death of the co-author’s mother and although the book’s ending indicates more to come, one wonders if the direction of the books might change. ( )

In 1921 England, Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Rutledge to Essex to investigate an unusual murder: There is a witness to the crime, but no body has been found. And the witness, an eminently respectable middle-aged woman who lives in the local manor house after losing both her husband and her son to World War I, recognized the murderer — a soldier who died several years earlier during the war.

Readers of the series will instantly understand from that summary the potential this case has to be an emotional land mine for Rutledge: He came back from fighting in France with a severe case of shell shock and the voice of his dead sergeant, Hamish, constantly in his head. How will be cope with investigating a murder apparently committed by a ghost against an invisible victim?

This 24th entry in the series is excellent, skillfully weaving the actual murder investigation into an examination of WWI's lingering effects on the home front and the people left to pick up the pieces in a world devoid of so many of their loved ones. There's also a subplot involving a woman Rutledge carries an unacknowledged torch for, which hints that there may be some further development on that front in future books.

About those future books: The preface to this one is an homage from one-half of the writing team that makes up the Charles Todd pseudonym, to his mother, who was the other half and has recently died. The ending of the book is not a cliffhanger that would all but assure another entry, but it's also not a neat tidying up of all the dangling plot lines, either. So I live in hope that come next February, I'll be happily spending time again with Inspector Rutledge for the 25th time. ( )