Review #130
An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery
It's New Year's Eve, 1919, and Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge has accompanied his sister to the home of mutual friends for dinner. However, he gets a call from the office and must leave early.
Rutledge travels to the remote and desolate English village of Dudlington after its Constable Hensley is shot in the back with an arrow and left for dead in gloomy Frith's Wood, a forest shunned by the locals. Inspector Rutledge becomes convinced that this strange attack is connected in some way to the disappearance of young Emma Mason several years earlier. Will he find Emma's body in the woods as well?
Compounding the Inspectors investigation is the fact that he keeps discovering spent cartridge casings carved with skulls and poppies. These sinister casings, left only where Rutledge will see them, make him worry that an old enemy from the war might be stalking him. His stalker follows him throughout his investigation in Dudlington, as does his imaginary sidekick, Hamish, who lives in Rutledge’s head and seems quite content to trundle along offering broguish quips from the inspector's mental sidecar.
And then…there is Psychic Meredith Channing who seems to have uncanny insights into both cases. Rutledge is reluctant to trust her since she was the scheduled entertainment at the dinner he missed with his sister!
The entire series of Inspector Ian Rutledge books are interesting, entertaining and twist filled…including this one!
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