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lgpiper's review against another edition
3.0
This is the second of the Inspector Rutledge mysteries written by "Charles Todd", a mother/son team. I read the 8th or 9th several years ago, and tried the first last summer. Insp. Rutledge is a shell-shocked veteran of WWI who is now working at Scotland Yard. His superior, doesn't much like having Rutledge around, so sends him off on obscure missions in places far from London. This book takes place in Cornwall, the extreme south west of England.
A brother and sister from an old aristocratic family appear to have committed mutual suicide. One of their heirs had an accident a short time later, falling downstairs and breaking his neck. One of the other heirs, however, felt that something with the family history wasn't quite correct. She got a highly placed government official to request a Scotland Yard investigation. Since Rutledge's superior wants to get him out of the way, Rutledge is sent to Cornwall. Rutledge discovers a history of family tragedy, one member fell out of a tree and was killed, another wandered off on the moor and never returned, another "shot" himself in a gun-cleaning accident, another appears to have been thrown from his horse and cracked his head on the rocks. Lots of "accidents/suicides' over the years. Rutledge investigates and concludes that likely one of the family members was a serial killer, perhaps one of the brother/sister suicides.
So, basically, Rutledge flounders around for quite some time before getting some clarity in his own mind. He is hounded by the voice in his head of "Hamish", a Scott whom he had had executed during the War for insubordination. He's also hounded by the loss of his fiancée, Jean, who dumped him after the war.
The first few books in this series that I read (#s 6, 4, then 1) I liked quite a lot, but this one not so much. It felt formulaic or something. Or perhaps the cognitive dissonance of reading this after a string of Walter Mosley novels left me disoriented. I'm on the fence as to whether I'll revisit Insp. Rutledge again next summer or not.
A brother and sister from an old aristocratic family appear to have committed mutual suicide. One of their heirs had an accident a short time later, falling downstairs and breaking his neck. One of the other heirs, however, felt that something with the family history wasn't quite correct. She got a highly placed government official to request a Scotland Yard investigation. Since Rutledge's superior wants to get him out of the way, Rutledge is sent to Cornwall. Rutledge discovers a history of family tragedy, one member fell out of a tree and was killed, another wandered off on the moor and never returned, another "shot" himself in a gun-cleaning accident, another appears to have been thrown from his horse and cracked his head on the rocks. Lots of "accidents/suicides' over the years. Rutledge investigates and concludes that likely one of the family members was a serial killer, perhaps one of the brother/sister suicides.
So, basically, Rutledge flounders around for quite some time before getting some clarity in his own mind. He is hounded by the voice in his head of "Hamish", a Scott whom he had had executed during the War for insubordination. He's also hounded by the loss of his fiancée, Jean, who dumped him after the war.
The first few books in this series that I read (#s 6, 4, then 1) I liked quite a lot, but this one not so much. It felt formulaic or something. Or perhaps the cognitive dissonance of reading this after a string of Walter Mosley novels left me disoriented. I'm on the fence as to whether I'll revisit Insp. Rutledge again next summer or not.
deehaichess's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
This damn book. If the first 75% had been anything like the last 25% (which actually gave me chills at one point, the scene was that good) it would have been an absolute cracker, and I'm bitter about the possibility that that 25% was only that good *because* of the first 75%. At the half way mark I was ready to pledge to never read another Charles Todd so long as I live, but now... Damn book.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence and Murder
Minor: Suicide and War
d_audy's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
northerly_heart_reads's review
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
leavingsealevel's review
2.0
I am enjoying this series, but also am sort of surprised by how dark the mysteries have been so far. At this point, the Bess Crawford series (same authors, have read them all) is very much a set of cozy mysteries, and I guess I'd forgotten that the earliest few books there were also somewhat disturbing.
megmcardle's review against another edition
4.0
Charles Todd's Inspector Ian Rutledge is one of those great characters of British crime fiction. He fought in the trenches of WWI France, and came back a shattered man, carrying the guilt of what he had seen in the war. The twist is that his guilt takes form as a very convincing delusion. Rutledge hears the voice of a man who died under his command. This voice, a Scottish officer called Hamish, serves as Rutledge's conscience. It is also the voice of his intuition, which he fears he lost in the war. I love the setting of between-the-wars England. So much devastation and loss, but people had to try and move on. In Wings of Fire, Rutledge investigates several suspicious deaths, including that of a famous poet. He always seems to be sent on the cases that are politically sensitive, and indeed there are hints that his Scotland Yard superior knows his weakness and is hoping he will fail. Rutledge was a huge fan of the poet, who he knew as O.A. Manning. No one realized until her death in an apparent double suicide that the poet was a woman, a spinster living in a small village. When she died, in a strange pact with her half-brother, Rutledge must find out the family's secrets. They have plenty, and I enjoyed following Rutledge's investigation. The author evokes life in a small English village very convincingly, and you are always involved emotionally with the tormented Rutledge.
judyward's review against another edition
4.0
The second book in the series by a mother-son writing team (one lives in New Jersey and one in North Carolina) whose books remind me of the books by the English writer Elizabeth George. Inspector Ian Rutledge is sent to Cornwall to investigate the sudden deaths of three members of a prominent family. During the investigation, Rutledge realizes that one of the dead women is O.A. Manning, a spinister who lived a rather isolated life in a Cornish village and whose poetry helped Rutledge hold on to his sanity while commanding his unit in the World War I trenches in France. Rutledge is still suffering from shell shock and carries in his head the voice of Hamish, a Scottish soldier whom he was forced to execute during the war. An intiguing plot, an examination of the psychological scars brought back to England from the front by their World War I soldiers, and an excellent look at England in the post-war period make this a must-read.