A Matter of Justice

Starred review from November 3, 2008
In the stellar 11th Insp. Ian Rutledge mystery (after 2007's A Pale Horse
), Todd (the pseudonym of a mother-son writing team) seamlessly combines a fair-play whodunit with a nuanced look into the heart of darkness in the human soul. During the Boer War, Pvt. Harold Quarles takes advantage of a Boer attack on a British military train to enrich himself. When two decades later his battered corpse is found grotesquely displayed at his country residence in Somerset, Scotland Yard's Ian Rutledge must sift through the plethora of lies, omissions and motives surrounding Quarles, who had become a successful investment adviser in London. Because the victim was almost universally despised in Somerset, Rutledge has no shortage of suspects. The inspector's own inner struggles, stemming from his guilt over his morally questionable actions during WWI, make him a more human and complicated protagonist than most other series sleuths.

Narrator Simon Prebble is an able coconspirator is this, the eleventh in Charles Todd's historical mysteries about WWI veteran and Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge. In this captivating addition to the series, Rutledge searches for the person who killed Harold Quarles, a successful London businessman who died while relaxing at his country estate. Everyone, including Quarles's wife, has reason to dislike, even hate, the man. But murder? The answers may lie in battlefield crimes that Quarles committed in the Boer War. Prebble has a fine command of our sympathetic protagonist, but the special pleasures of the narration come in his enlivening renditions of everyone from a teenage Welsh girl to a rough Yorkshireman. Also, his ability to render emotion without excessive drama is exemplary. Do listen. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine