Hunting Shadows Author: Visit Amazon's Charles Todd Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0062237187 | Format: PDF
Hunting Shadows Description
From Booklist
It’s the summer of 1920, and Scotland Yard’s Inspector Ian Rutledge has a tricky case on his hands. Someone has murdered two men in the city of Ely in Cambridgeshire. Try as he might, Rutledge can’t seem to find any connection between the victims—a military man from out of town and a local political candidate—although it does appear that the killer is a sharpshooter, a fact that does not sit well with Rutledge, a war veteran himself, or with Hamish, Rutledge’s interior companion (the manifestation, series fans know, of Rutledge’s guilt over the death of a friend in the war). There are a lot of questions, but perhaps the most pressing is whether Rutledge’s memories of war, sparked by these recent murders, are distracting annoyances or the key to solving the case? Another well-written, well-plotted entry in this always engaging mystery series. --David Pitt
Review
“Tricky plotting and rich atmospherics distinguish bestseller Todd’s 16th novel featuring Scotland Yard’s Insp. Ian Rutledge....Todd (the pen name of a mother-son writing team) has rarely been better.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review) on HUNTING SHADOWS)
“Another well-written, well-plotted entry in this always engaging mystery series. (Booklist on HUNTING SHADOWS)
“Another winner…Strong atmosphere and a complicated mystery make this book one that readers won’t be able to put down.” (Romantic Times 4 1/2 stars on HUNTING SHADOWS)
“As always, the North Carolina-based mother and son who write under the pseudonym Charles Todd do a beautiful job with the period detail, making these books a nostalgic outing to England between the world wars.” (Raleigh News & Observer)
“Readers who stick with the chase, though, should be enthralled, as Rutledge sorts through a fascinating portrait gallery of witnesses and suspects, most of whom aren’t telling him the whole truth.” (Wilmington News Journal)
“Of all the places where Inspector Ian Rutledge’s Scotland Yard assignments have taken him, the desolate Fen country must surely be the eeriest. [This is an] excellent historical series.” (New York Times Book Review on HUNTING SHADOWS)
See all Editorial Reviews
- Series: Ian Rutledge (Book 16)
- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition edition (January 21, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0062237187
- ISBN-13: 978-0062237187
- Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Now this is what I call an excellent addition to the Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery series. It was set up exactly the way I prefer my mysteries. The plot and the investigation took center stage without the distractions of trying to involve Rutledge in a romance and Hamish McLoed was present, but only minimally. If you prefer to read about Rutledge fighting the psychological battle of the presence of Hamish in his mind or if you want to read of romantic attachments for the main characters you might not be quite as pleased as I was.
Scotland Yard is called in when two murders take place within a two week period in the Fen country of England. The time is August and September of 1920, so almost every incident which takes place has some relation to the recently ended war. In this case a rifle is being used to kill men who seem to have absolutely no connection with each other. There is a new Acting Chief superintendent at Scotland Yard and he is impatient with the slow progress Rutledge is making in the two cases, but he also doesn't take into consideration how tangled the relationships are between all the concerned parties and how deeply the secrets are buried. Rutledge solves the problem of how to deal with his boss by simply staying away from London.
The writing in this novel is absolutely first class. Reading the description of the fog Rutledge runs into on his journey from London was so realistic it almost made me claustrophobic myself! Especially when I looked out my own windows and saw everything coated with ice and nothing moving about except the freezing rain. Talk about the right weekend to read this book!
It's August of 1920, in the Fen country of England. World War I is barely over, and the soldiers who survived will never be over it. As wedding guests gather outside a cathedral, an unseen gunman picks off a wedding guest with a rifle and a German sighting device that only a soldier would use. The following month, a local aspiring parliament candidate is killed, again with a single rifle shot by an unseen assailant.
Scotland Yard is called, and Ian Rutledge is on the case. He takes to his motorcar, as much to avoid a new impatient superintendent as to get to the root of things, and sets out on a quest to find out how the victims are related, and who the culprit could be.
Poor Ian Rutledge. He's a brilliant Scotland Yard detective yet he's haunted by his past, is shell-shocked (which is seen as a shameful affliction), has the talking ghost of deceased soldier Hamish MacLeod always in his head, is loathed by most everyone in the department, has no love life, and is apparently the person to whom everyone tells lies.
Yet he perseveres.
He's nothing, if not stubborn. Rutledge perseveres and unravels a tale so complex that you might need to make a chart of the characters to keep them straight. Yet Todd takes all those threads and storylines and subplots and weaves them and weaves them until the mysteries (because there are many) are solved.
This is the 16th of the Todd's Ian Rutledge series. But fear not. You don't need to read all the previous ones to understand the characters or what is going on. You can jump in at book 16 and, if you become addicted as I have, you can go back and read the previous works, in no particular order.
Hunting Shadows Preview
Link
Please Wait...