enjoyed it. The characterization and the basic plot were enjoyable, but it is the main character that elevates it above the average series ( )

First is series about Inspector Ian Rutledge. A surprise ending in learning that a young woman who was known to be timid and shy had a dual personality. Her other personality was Helena, a step sister killed long ago as a child. Google Books: Ian Rutledge returns to his career at Scotland Yard after years of fighting in the First World War. Unknown to his colleagues he is still suffering from shell shock, and is burdened with the guilt of having had executed a young soldier on the battlefield for refusing to fight. A jealous colleague has learned of his secret and has managed to have Rutledge assigned to a difficult case which could spell disaster for Rutledge whatever the outcome. A retired officer has been murdered. Rutledge, fighting the torment of his illness goes to investigte. As he digs into the lives of the villagers, the witness who disturbs him most is a war-ravaged ex-soldier, who chills Rutledge with the realisation that he could become like this man.

(1996) Very good introduction to Rutledge, a WWI veteran with PTSD (shell shock) from the war. He functions pretty well, but has a voice in his head (Hamish) who is a much a character of the story as is Ian. Hamish MacLeod forces Ian to keep on the straight and narrow. The story is of a former Colonel Harris in the war who is murdered by shotgun. The main suspect is a former air ace Captain Wilton who the Home Office does not want found to be the murderer as he is a genuine war hero. Rutledge reluctantly comes to the opinion that the Captain is the culprit until he discovers that a local woman has mistakenly killed the Colonel, thinking that he had killed her sister by hit and run years earlier. She has taken on the second personality of her sister but the the 2 cannot coexist and the result is her suicide. KIRKUS: Returning from the Great War in 1919, Inspector Ian Rutledge is dispatched to the Warwick village of Upper Streetham to track down the killer of Colonel Charles Harris, shot from his horse but mysteriously landed on his chest. Except for heavily alibied malcontent Bert Mavers, no one seems to have anything bad to say about the squire: certainly not his loyal business manager Laurence Royston, his ward Lettice Wood, or her fianc? Captain Mark Wilton, who insists that his recent colloquy with Harris was anything but a quarrel. Besides, Rutledge's local colleagues tell him, how much stock can they place in the story of the quarrel, which depends entirely on the testimony of Daniel Hickam, half- mad from shell shock? As Rutledge pokes sedately among the embers of Harris's manse and the neighboring households¥the investigation proceeds slowly, slowly, through endless conversations with nary a hint of violence before the suspects' secrets tumble out in the closing pagesÂ¥he wrestles with a secret of his own: his agonizing case of shell shock, which has cursed him with the nagging specter of Hamish MacLeod, a corporal whose only return from the war has been inside Rutledge's head. The 20th century hasn't happened in Upper Streetham, which seems to have been cast out of Rebecca, or in first-novelist Todd's deeply old-fashioned storytelling, which eschews the slightest impropriety in favor of the patient subtlety and circumlocution that held readers in thrall 70 years ago. A feast for the like-minded.Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1996ISBN: 0-312-14431-8Page Count: 320Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin'sReview Posted Online: May 20, 2010Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996Categories: HISTORICAL FICTIONSHARE YOUR

This is the first book in Todd's Inspector Rutledge mystery series. It sets the tones for 23 or 24 more. I like the slow pace. In the post-WWII time period, Rutledge has to solve the mystery by interviewing and re-interviewing people, following red herring after red herring, all while listening to the voice in his head telling him what a poor job he's doing. I like Todd's writing style, the details of the time period and Rutledge's personality. ( )

Having re-read Dorothy Sayers' [b:Whose Body?|192893|Whose Body? (Lord Peter Wimsey, #1)|Dorothy L. Sayers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387573241l/192893._SY75_.jpg|1090544] just a week or so before this book, I couldn't help but be struck by the ways in which both books address the lingering effects of the horrors of World War I trench warfare on surviving veterans. Sayers' books are a hallmark of the British Golden Age of crime fiction; the Rutledge series is set in that time, but has been written over the past 25 years.

In Whose Body?, Peter Wimsey succumbs to nightmares triggered by recollections of the war only periodically, while Ian Rutledge struggles with PTSD on a day to day basis. Not only do his memories of combat and death haunt Rutledge as he tries to re-establish his role at Scotland Yard after the war, the secret awareness by others of his condition drives part of the plot. A colleague jealous of Rutledge's investigative talents arranges for him to be assigned a case that has every appearance of becoming a political nightmare. When it all blows up, Rutledge should go down in flames.

The plot is very much a typical English village mystery, but with a thick overlay of issues tied to the war in different ways. Lots of the red herrings I love, and a very clever resolution. Rutledge pulls it out at the 11th hour, salvaging his reputation and setting up the rest of the series, which is now 23 books long! It's easy to see why it has been so popular and has won so many awards. I will definitely be returning to learn not only what crimes Rutledge is set to resolve, but how he moves forward with his life. ( )