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justasking27's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars - somewhere between a procedural and a cozy, with an ambling plot and decent character development. An enjoyable slow read.
plantbirdwoman's review
3.0
We pick up this historical mystery series once again as it has reached 1920, well past the Armistice that ended World War I, but that "War to End All Wars" continues to cast its long and morbid shadow over Britain and Europe at large.
Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard continues to bury himself in his work in an attempt to forget his traumatic war experiences. It is a futile effort, as the voice of the Scots soldier, Hamish, whom Rutledge had had to execute in the field because of his failure to obey a direct order, continues to live on in Rutledge's head, both advising him and criticizing his actions. At times, he expects to see Hamish materialize. He can't be sure that he isn't real. Yes, Rutledge continues to suffer mightily from PTSD, or shell shock as it was known at the time. It was considered a shameful thing. Its victims were thought to be cowards.
Rutledge is never the flavor of the month as far as his boss, Superintendent Bowles (known to his subordinates as Bowels), is concerned. Bowles spends his career making sure that Rutledge gets out of town and out of Bowles' sight. I've never completely understood Bowles' enmity. If it was explained in an early book, I must have missed it or forgotten it. But whenever there is crime in the provinces that requires help from Scotland Yard, Bowles' preference is to send Rutledge.
In The Red Door, Rutledge is sent to investigate various crimes. He gets involved in a local crime "wave" featuring a young man who attacks passersby on a bridge, holding a knife on them and demanding their money and valuables. He attacks Rutledge who tries to arrest him and is injured in the process. Rutledge was unable to stop him and he can't be found in the search that follows. The man continues attacking and sometimes injuring people and, eventually, the inevitable happens. He kills someone.
But this has nothing to do really with Rutledge's main case. It involves a prominent man who has gone missing from the hospital where he was being treated for a mysterious illness.
Rutledge searches unsuccessfully for the missing man, but finally he comes back with a very vague explanation of what had happened to him. Things get curiouser and curiouser when we find out that a woman bearing the last name of the previously missing man has been killed in a village in the provinces. Rutledge is sent to investigate and finds that the woman's husband was supposedly lost in the war, but that his name was the same as one of the brothers of the man who temporarily went missing. Is this just a coincidence or is there a family connection?
Meanwhile, Rutledge's godfather and the godfather's grandson come from Scotland to visit, because Rutledge won't go there. When they start on their return journey, their train derails outside of London and Rutledge rushes to the scene to discover if they are injured or killed. There, he makes another discovery of an injured person - the woman that he carries a torch for.
Do you get the feeling that the plot of this book is one hot mess? I think that's an accurate assessment. It seems that Charles Todd threw everything including the kitchen sink into the mix hoping that something would stick. None of the characters in this story, other than Rutledge himself, his sister, godfather, etc., are sympathetic. We really don't care what happens to them, and so as the body count rises, the reaction is to yawn rather than to be distressed.
I have to admit also that the voice of Hamish is beginning to grate on me just as it does on Rutledge. One wonders if he's ever to be free of it and one suspects that he never will be since it seems one of the major devices of Todd's plots.
This wasn't a terrible book, but it also did not much advance the story of the shell-shocked former soldier struggling to return to normalcy and to hide his shameful illness from others. This reader would dearly like to see the man, after 12 books on the subject, begin to come to terms with his illness and find some peace. Maybe even find some happiness. Perhaps that's too much to hope for.
Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard continues to bury himself in his work in an attempt to forget his traumatic war experiences. It is a futile effort, as the voice of the Scots soldier, Hamish, whom Rutledge had had to execute in the field because of his failure to obey a direct order, continues to live on in Rutledge's head, both advising him and criticizing his actions. At times, he expects to see Hamish materialize. He can't be sure that he isn't real. Yes, Rutledge continues to suffer mightily from PTSD, or shell shock as it was known at the time. It was considered a shameful thing. Its victims were thought to be cowards.
Rutledge is never the flavor of the month as far as his boss, Superintendent Bowles (known to his subordinates as Bowels), is concerned. Bowles spends his career making sure that Rutledge gets out of town and out of Bowles' sight. I've never completely understood Bowles' enmity. If it was explained in an early book, I must have missed it or forgotten it. But whenever there is crime in the provinces that requires help from Scotland Yard, Bowles' preference is to send Rutledge.
In The Red Door, Rutledge is sent to investigate various crimes. He gets involved in a local crime "wave" featuring a young man who attacks passersby on a bridge, holding a knife on them and demanding their money and valuables. He attacks Rutledge who tries to arrest him and is injured in the process. Rutledge was unable to stop him and he can't be found in the search that follows. The man continues attacking and sometimes injuring people and, eventually, the inevitable happens. He kills someone.
But this has nothing to do really with Rutledge's main case. It involves a prominent man who has gone missing from the hospital where he was being treated for a mysterious illness.
Rutledge searches unsuccessfully for the missing man, but finally he comes back with a very vague explanation of what had happened to him. Things get curiouser and curiouser when we find out that a woman bearing the last name of the previously missing man has been killed in a village in the provinces. Rutledge is sent to investigate and finds that the woman's husband was supposedly lost in the war, but that his name was the same as one of the brothers of the man who temporarily went missing. Is this just a coincidence or is there a family connection?
Meanwhile, Rutledge's godfather and the godfather's grandson come from Scotland to visit, because Rutledge won't go there. When they start on their return journey, their train derails outside of London and Rutledge rushes to the scene to discover if they are injured or killed. There, he makes another discovery of an injured person - the woman that he carries a torch for.
Do you get the feeling that the plot of this book is one hot mess? I think that's an accurate assessment. It seems that Charles Todd threw everything including the kitchen sink into the mix hoping that something would stick. None of the characters in this story, other than Rutledge himself, his sister, godfather, etc., are sympathetic. We really don't care what happens to them, and so as the body count rises, the reaction is to yawn rather than to be distressed.
I have to admit also that the voice of Hamish is beginning to grate on me just as it does on Rutledge. One wonders if he's ever to be free of it and one suspects that he never will be since it seems one of the major devices of Todd's plots.
This wasn't a terrible book, but it also did not much advance the story of the shell-shocked former soldier struggling to return to normalcy and to hide his shameful illness from others. This reader would dearly like to see the man, after 12 books on the subject, begin to come to terms with his illness and find some peace. Maybe even find some happiness. Perhaps that's too much to hope for.
lindaleigh's review against another edition
1.0
I picked this book up having never read anything by Charles Todd. I was excited to read it being the back cover sounded right up my alley. I love a good murder mystery however I found this book drawn out. I also feel it just had too much going on. It took me three days to finish which for me is a very long time for a book this size. The ending was eh for me. probably won't read something of his again.
colibookworm's review against another edition
4.0
A great mystery! Red door had a lot of different characters to juggle. I definitely didn't know what to expect.
laharder's review
3.5
British detective novel set after World War I. Entertaining like a PBS British show
llynn66's review
3.0
Fellow readers, I am OCD about reading series in order. I want to meet the characters as they introduce themselves and then see them develop and evolve over time. I want to re-acquaint myself with them in each new instalment, like keeping in touch with a very enjoyable friend who I only see once every year or so.
But I was really pressed for a quick new read recently, between library reserves and had to make a hasty grab off the new book shelf. This cover intrigued me, so I broke my rule and read a mystery out of order.
It has proven fortuitous. The Ian Rutledge series has, thus far, escaped me. Yet it contains all the elements I enjoy and wraps them into a very competently written story...at least in the example of The Red Door. Take a British setting between the wars, add a detective haunted by the tragedies of his own past (in this case the scars of the Great War), mix in a neurotic aristocratic family with dark secrets and, voila! This reader is well satisfied.
But I was really pressed for a quick new read recently, between library reserves and had to make a hasty grab off the new book shelf. This cover intrigued me, so I broke my rule and read a mystery out of order.
It has proven fortuitous. The Ian Rutledge series has, thus far, escaped me. Yet it contains all the elements I enjoy and wraps them into a very competently written story...at least in the example of The Red Door. Take a British setting between the wars, add a detective haunted by the tragedies of his own past (in this case the scars of the Great War), mix in a neurotic aristocratic family with dark secrets and, voila! This reader is well satisfied.
clarehitchens's review
3.0
I liked this contribution to the Ian Rutledge series, but I wish Rutledge would stop hopping in his motorcar and beetling off all over England as though he were just going for milk (not that we would buy his own milk). It makes me dizzy that the day starts and ends in Essex with stops in Lancashire and London in between. Sometimes I'm so busy figuring out where he is that I lose the story. But I have grown fond of these characters and find myself wanting good things for them, so it's off to the next book to see what's in store.
londonmabel's review against another edition
3.0
A very good English-style mystery. I was able to guess a certain amount of the solutions, but not too soon, and not every detail--so just the right balance between suspense and letting-the-reader participate. I also really liked the tortured protagonist, even though I haven't read the earlier books in the series.
vkemp's review
4.0
A lonely woman waits for her husband's return from WWI and paints her door red. Two years later, a man disappears from a London psychiatric hospital. Ian Rutledge is called into the case because the Teller family is quite well-connected and Chief Superintendent Bowles tells Rutledge to find Walter Teller quickly. Rutledge and his doppelganger, Hamish, travel between London, Essex and Lancashire as both cases come together in a most unusual manner. How is the Teller family related to a dead woman and boy in Lancashire who live in a house with a faded red door? Rutledge also has to deal with his feelings for Meredith Channing, who is injured in a train wreck that also involves his godfather and honorary nephew. How can he love Meredith when Hamish renders him unfit for most polite society? I will be anxiously awaiting the continuation of this series.
pgchuis's review
2.0
2.5* rounded down.
This is the twelfth in the Inspector Rutledge series, but the only one I have read. The crime-solving part of the novel stood alone well, but the whole Hamish voice and the Meredith Channing "courtship" and indeed most of the characters who appeared in chapter 3 and were never seen again called for a prior knowledge I did not have.
The story concerns Florence (whose husband, Peter Teller, never returned from WWI), who is found murdered, and then the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of a man called Walter Teller. Rutledge tries to work out who Florence's shady husband really was and why Walter went missing. There are also the stabbings committed by the bloodthirsty Billy, which weren't related at all and were a complete distraction.
I thought the writing itself was good, but it was one of those stories where all the characters spend the whole time lying to the police, which drive me mad. The mystery of what happened was mostly good too, although the very core was left as "we will never know", which was frustrating. The final twist was perhaps a twist too far and the whole story was a bit more "cozy" than I really like.
Mostly skimmed.
This is the twelfth in the Inspector Rutledge series, but the only one I have read. The crime-solving part of the novel stood alone well, but the whole Hamish voice and the Meredith Channing "courtship" and indeed most of the characters who appeared in chapter 3 and were never seen again called for a prior knowledge I did not have.
The story concerns Florence (whose husband, Peter Teller, never returned from WWI), who is found murdered, and then the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of a man called Walter Teller. Rutledge tries to work out who Florence's shady husband really was and why Walter went missing. There are also the stabbings committed by the bloodthirsty Billy, which weren't related at all and were a complete distraction.
I thought the writing itself was good, but it was one of those stories where all the characters spend the whole time lying to the police, which drive me mad. The mystery of what happened was mostly good too, although the very core was left as "we will never know", which was frustrating. The final twist was perhaps a twist too far and the whole story was a bit more "cozy" than I really like.
Mostly skimmed.
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