Hunting Shadows

Starred review from December 2, 2013
Tricky plotting and rich atmospherics (“the Fen country, where water had separated everyone and made foreigners of people ten miles distant”) distinguish bestseller Todd’s 16th novel featuring Scotland Yard’s Insp. Ian Rutledge (after 2013’s Proof of Guilt). In September 1920, Rutledge has a real baffler on his hands: a sniper has just killed two seemingly unrelated men in the Fen country of East Anglia. Captain Hutchinson was gunned down as he was about to enter a church for a wedding, and Tory candidate for Parliament Herbert Swift’s head was blown off as he began a stump speech. The initial inquiries yielded little and resulted in the locals calling in the Yard, but apart from a woman who claims she saw a monster just as Swift was shot, there isn’t much for Rutledge to go on. Todd (the pen name of a mother-son writing team) has rarely been better. Agent: Jane Chelius, Jane Chelius Literary Agency.

January 1, 2014

War memories always filter through Inspector Rutledge's consciousness, but World War I rears up again when a sniper ruins a wedding in Ely Cathedral--and the killer doesn't stop at one. This is number 16 for the popular 1920s set series (after Proof of Guilt). [See Prepub Alert, 7/15/13.]

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2013
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 victimsa military man from out of town and a local political candidatealthough 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)