Review by New York Times Review
PICKING UP ONE of Charles Todd's post-World War I historical mysteries is like starting off on an uncertain journey. In each book, Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard, a shellshocked veteran of the Great War, makes his solitary way to some provincial English town, ostensibly to assist the local constabulary with a baffling crime but also to bear witness to the incalculable devastation brought about by the fighting. In 16 previous novels, the authors (a mother and son who write under a pen name) have sent their haunted hero all over the country, taking stock of the terrible desolation he sees everywhere and knowing that true justice is beyond his powers. A FINE SUMMER'S DAY (Morrow/HarperCollins, $26.99) is a bittersweet gift to longtime readers of this wonderful series, a prequel that opens in 1914 on one of those perfect English days, "peaceful, measured, and like the Empire, destined to go on forever" - the sort of day a carefree young man like Rutledge would choose to propose to his beloved. And it's just bad luck it also happens to be the day the Austrian archduke and his wife are assassinated in Sarajevo. This intimate look into the personal life of a detective we've known only as a damaged soul is no small gift. Rutledge's only serious concern, for the moment, is how to squire his fiancée to all those festive engagement parties when he's constantly called away to investigate a series of inexplicable murders. Although that mystery is intelligently developed and fairly resolved, the greater gift here is the portrait it presents of England before the war - and before young ladies began urging their men to march off to France. "I don't want everyone thinking you're a coward," Rutledge's fiancée declares. But on that fine June day, England was lovely, a land of "fields and meadows, distant church towers and green countryside," and life was simple. A man could take pride in his work as a farmer or a barber or a furniture maker, and although a woman couldn't vote or serve on a jury, she was far more influential than her husband when it came to village life. Girls played lawn games, and boys were boys. "They rambled, they fished, they went to the seaside, hunted birds' nests," and they had all the time in the world to grow up. EIGHT SENECA CLAN mothers ("stronger and older than law") go up against the organized crime elders of upstate New York in a STRING OF BEADS (Mysterious Press/ Grove/Atlantic, $26), another excellently engineered thriller from Thomas Perry featuring Jane Whitefield, a Seneca Indian who has made a career of helping others escape from danger. The clan mothers summon Jane to track down her childhood friend Jimmy Sanders, who has foolishly fled the Tonawanda Reservation after being falsely charged with the murder of some jerk who started a fight with him in a bar. After a grueling hike to an archaeological site in Pennsylvania they had visited as teenagers, she finds her old friend waiting. When their trek home is rudely interrupted by mob enforcers dispatched to kill Jimmy, Jane summons all her survival skills to teach him how to make himself invisible. There can be several steps to this transformation, from simple alterations in appearance (carrying a book makes a great disguise) to the demanding pursuit of a new profession. But taking on a new identity is a tricky business, and while Jimmy seems liberated by the challenge, Jane finds herself drawn deeper into her clan identity and her neglected cultural heritage. All this soul-searching and car chases too. What more could we ask from an escape artist like Perry? THE WORD "CREEPY" (attached to descriptive adverbs like "insanely" and "diabolically" or even "deliciously") immediately comes to mind after a quick dip into a PLEASURE AND A CALLING (Picador, $25), a psychological suspense novel by Phil Hogan about a real estate broker who keeps a set of keys to all the homes he's sold in the past 17 years. William Heming, who narrates his own story in a prim, professorial tone, fancies himself a patron of his pretty little English town, and to this end will periodically slip into a house to monitor the lives of its residents. Insisting that he's no stalker or voyeur, Heming sees himself in a more godlike guise, the benevolent overseer who will change a light bulb or rewire a loose connection. "I am happy on the fringes," he insists, "listening and watching, excitedly awaiting your next move." But when someone steps out of line, he'll stop at nothing, not even murder, to keep his kingdom all to himself. THE SOUL OF DISCRETION (Overlook, $26.95) subverts all our assumptions about Lafferton, the pleasant cathedral town where Susan Hill sets her civilized mysteries featuring Chief Superintendent Simon Serrailler. Who knew that lovely Lafferton had a mean side, a neighborhood where residents were often awakened by children screaming in the night? And who would dream that the Honorable Will Fernley, third son of Lord Fernley, would be arrested and sent to prison for his participation in a sophisticated pedophile ring that's operating in the area? In a daring move to track down the leaders and bankrollers of this sleazy organization, Serrailler goes undercover as a convicted pedophile in the experimental "therapeutic community" where Fernley is doing time. Be assured that our hero's depressing experience will have a sobering effect on the whole town.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [February 25, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
Before WWI, before he had the haunting voice of a dead soldier in his head, Ian Rutledge was a Scotland Yard inspector. This new entry in the Rutledge series is an origin story, a chance to see a familiar character in unfamiliar circumstances. It's June 1914. Archduke Ferdinand has just been assassinated in Sarajevo, an event that barely registers on the periphery of Rutledge's consciousness; Rutledge, you see, is much more concerned with matters closer to home, like his impending marriage proposal to a beautiful woman and, less happily, a series of murders that will require all of his skills to solve. Interestingly, even though he has yet to endure the events that will torture him for many years, Rutledge is strikingly familiar here, a sharp-witted and relentless investigator with a strong sense of compassion. A very welcome addition to, and expansion of, a much-loved series.--Pitt, David Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Series fans will appreciate Todd's 17th Ian Rutledge mystery (after 2014's Hunting Shadows), a prequel set in the summer of 1914. Rutledge, a Scotland Yard inspector, has just gotten engaged, and as the guns of August loom, he lands a tricky murder case in Dorset. Furniture maker Ben Clayton-who had no obvious enemies-was hanged from his staircase by an intruder. More deaths follow, but a scene that Todd (the mother-son writing team of Caroline and Charles Todd) presents early on makes this a thriller rather than a whodunit. The writing is as sharp as ever, but without the series regular Hamish MacLeod, whom Rutledge was forced to execute during WWI for disobeying orders and who subsequently haunts the shell-shocked Rutledge as a sort of ghostly Watson, newcomers won't appreciate how extraordinary this series is. Five-city author tour. Agent: Jane Chelius, Jane Chelius Literary Agency. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
It was a fine summer's day in 1914 when life changed for so many people: Scotland Yard inspector Ian Rutledge proposed to his longtime companion, Jean Gordon, Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, and the death of a mother sparked a trail of murders, leading Rutledge across the English countryside in search of the killer. As Rutledge closes in on the solution to the case, rumors of war become a reality, and the inspector must not only deal with the aftermath of his investigation but also face the increasing needs of his betrothed, family, Scotland Yard, and Britain itself. VERDICT In this prequel and 17th series entry (after Hunting Shadows), Rutledge deals with a killer's past and his own future in a country readying for war. A tight plot keeps readers on the edge until the stunning final pages. [See Prepub Alert, 7/28/14.] (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
