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julan1027 's review for:
A Test of Wills
by Charles Todd
Ian Rutledge is home from the War and back at Scotland Yard, but he is not the same brilliant detective who left five years earlier. He is secretly suffering from shell shock. The taunting voice of young corporal Hamish, who was executed on Rutledge's orders, is the policeman's constant companion. After World War 1 those with shell shock were often seen as cowards and lunatics. Imagine then Rutledge's horror when his first solo case after returning to the Yard seems to depend on the testimony of a man with severe shell shock who is implicating a decorated war hero and friend of the Royal family in the murder of another upstanding career soldier. It's a case that could ruin his career - which is just what his jealous superior at the Yard is hoping it will do.
Rutledge finds that everyone in the village seems to know something about the murder of Colonel Harris, but that nobody wants to talk. Are they all afraid that evidence is pointing to the hero, Captain Wilton? Though he senses that everybody is keeping secrets, Rutledge's formerly sharp intuition seems to fail him as it replaced by Hamish's constant mockery.
This was a tough mystery to solve because it seemed like there should be no reason that anybody would want to hurt Harris. Everybody liked and admired the man, and yet he was most certainly murdered and quite brutally. However, the clues were there all along; I just didn't realize it until the end of the book. The characters were well-developed and the smaller story lines were interesting. My biggest complaint was that it dragged a bit in parts and could perhaps have been shortened to remove some of the slower bits. However, the slower bits did help develop an understanding of characters.
I love Charles Todd's series with Bess Crawford, and I initially found myself wishing that she was the focus of this book instead of Ian Rutledge. However, I soon came to appreciate the Inspector and the special approach that he brought to investigation. It was painful watching him struggle with his PTSD and trying to keep it a secret, and I felt his frustration when nobody wanted to cooperate with his investigation. I think it was an excellent first book and I will read more in the series.
Rutledge finds that everyone in the village seems to know something about the murder of Colonel Harris, but that nobody wants to talk. Are they all afraid that evidence is pointing to the hero, Captain Wilton? Though he senses that everybody is keeping secrets, Rutledge's formerly sharp intuition seems to fail him as it replaced by Hamish's constant mockery.
This was a tough mystery to solve because it seemed like there should be no reason that anybody would want to hurt Harris. Everybody liked and admired the man, and yet he was most certainly murdered and quite brutally. However, the clues were there all along; I just didn't realize it until the end of the book. The characters were well-developed and the smaller story lines were interesting. My biggest complaint was that it dragged a bit in parts and could perhaps have been shortened to remove some of the slower bits. However, the slower bits did help develop an understanding of characters.
I love Charles Todd's series with Bess Crawford, and I initially found myself wishing that she was the focus of this book instead of Ian Rutledge. However, I soon came to appreciate the Inspector and the special approach that he brought to investigation. It was painful watching him struggle with his PTSD and trying to keep it a secret, and I felt his frustration when nobody wanted to cooperate with his investigation. I think it was an excellent first book and I will read more in the series.