The red door

Set in 1920, bestseller Todd's 12th mystery to feature the shell-shocked WWI veteran and Scotland Yard inspector Ian Rutledge (after 2008's A Matter of Justice) is one of the strongest entries yet in a series that shows no sign of losing steam. Rutledge first looks into the disappearance of missionary Walter Teller, who suddenly fell ill in London and later apparently walked out of the clinic where he was being treated. Rutledge questions members of Teller's immediate family, including his brothers, Peter and Edwin.ÅAfter the resolution of the case of the missing missionary, Rutledge investigates the bludgeoning death of Florence Teller,Åapparently the wife of another Peter Teller, in Lancashire. Once again Todd (the pseudonym of a mother-son writing team) perfectly balance incisive portraits of all the characters, not just the complex and original lead, with a tricky puzzle in which the killer is hidden in plain sight for the discerning reader to discover. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Warning: skeletons in the family closet can be deadly. In Todd's 12th Inspector Rutledge mystery (after A Matter of Justice), set in post-World War I London, Rutledge struggles to find inner peace in a disillusioned world. His current assignment starts as a straightforward missing-person case of one Walter Teller but quickly blends into a murder investigation when a woman is killed in Lancashire. Village accounts suggest she was married to army officer Peter Teller, presumed dead. Is it just a coincidence that one of Walter's brothers is named Peter, who happens to be very much alive, living in London, and married to another woman? The Teller family emphatically denies that the dead woman is a relation, but Rutledge must uncover their secret before the killer strikes again. After introducing new sleuth Bess Crawford in A Duty to the Dead, the mother-and-son writing team returns to their popular series sleuth, the tortured but very human Ian Rutledge, with this engaging and atmospheric mystery. Verdict Recommended for Anglophiles who love cozy, historical mysteries with a detective who is bent but never completely broken. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/09.]-Susan O. Moritz, Montgomery Cty. P.L.s, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Inspector Rutledge confronts a war-weary family in 1920. Where is Walter Teller? An undiagnosed malady has sent him to the Belvedere Clinic. His wife Jenny, his sister Leticia, his brothers Edwin and Peter and their wives Amy and Susannah worry over him, then become alarmed when he disappears. Family members hare off in all directions to find him, reuniting when Scotland Yard sends Inspector Rutledge to help. Nobody seems eager to confide in Rutledge, who, accompanied by the hectoring ghost of Hamish, a soldier he executed during the Great War, wonders if the Tellers of Essex are related to recently murdered Florence Teller, a widow from Hobson. Her husband Peter never returned from the war. Are her Peter and the Essex Peter one and the same? Was she killed to cover up not only bigamy but illegitimacy? And is her death related to Walter's illness? Peter, his leg gimpy from war wounds, falls downstairs and dies. Jenny, distraught at Peter's possible perfidy, succumbs to laudanum poisoning. Walter returns, then vanishes again, only to be waylaid himself. While sorting through the family travails, Rutledge must confront a former suitor of Florence with family woes of his own, as well as a triple murderer who's prowling Westminster Bridge determined to slay Rutledge. Departing from Rutledge's earlier cases (A Matter of Justice, 2008, etc.), the caprices of fatherhood take precedence over the iniquities of war this time, with a subdued Hamish and an emotionally reawakening Rutledge along for the ride. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.