Racing the Devil

Narrator Simon Prebble slips comfortably into Inspector Ian Rutledge's persona in the 19th installment in the series. Having survived the French battlefields of WWI and a disastrous automobile race in 1919, Rutledge investigates a car crash in the South Downs. Was the man who caused the crash in Nice the same man responsible for the fatal accident in the Downs? Hamish, Rutledge's ghostly assistant, who is portrayed with a light Scottish brogue, helps the inspector track down the culprit. The close-knit members of the small town in South Downs are portrayed in a variety of soft-toned accents, with each character subtly differentiated. Prebble torques up the tension as Rutledge and Hamish follow elusive clues, determined to solve this convoluted mystery despite the rain and reluctant villagers. M.B.K. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

December 19, 2016
In the first chapter of bestseller Todd’s suspenseful 19th whodunit featuring Scotland Yard inspector Ian Rutledge (after 2016’s No Shred of Evidence), Andrew Brothers, a veteran of WWI, is nearly run off the road by another car while driving in the South of France in 1919. A year later in East Sussex, Rector Wright, the rector of St. Simon’s church, borrows a motorcar belonging to another WWI veteran, Captain Standish, without the officer’s permission. In a heavy rainstorm at night, Wright is killed instantly in a crash. The local constable, troubled by evidence of another vehicle at the scene of the tragedy, sends for Rutledge; he finds traces of paint on the captain’s car, which suggests that the crash no an accident. Given that the dead man appeared to have no enemies and the collision occurred in the dark, Rutledge pursues the notion that Standish was the intended victim. As always, Todd (the mother-and-son writing team of Caroline and Charles Todd) maintains a high degree of tension throughout and populates the story with vivid characters bearing the external and internal scars of war. Agent: Jane Chelius, Jane Chelius Literary.

September 15, 2016

In 1919, several English officers are racing from Paris to Nice--which they'd sworn to do if they survived the war--when two are run off the road and one seriously injured. Back home, a car that was also in the race is involved in a fatal crash, and Inspector Ian Rutledge is finally called in. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2017
Scotland Yard's Inspector Ian Rutledge battles his own shell shock and a rector's murderer in an English coastal hamlet.On the eve of near-certain death at the Somme, seven British officers make a pact that if they live through the war, they'll all meet again a year later for a race from Paris to Nice in the latest motorcars. The five survivors find the twisting, foggy roads more of a threat than they had bargained for. One of their number crashes in a fiery wreck. Unbeknownst to his comrades, he's been deliberately run off the road. A year later, in the village of Burling Gap, an eerily similar accident takes the life of the parish's beloved rector. The local constable is sharp enough to notice that it may not have been an accident at all--why would the rector have been driving someone else's car without permission?--and calls in Scotland Yard. The Yard sends Inspector Rutledge (No Shred of Evidence, 2016, etc.), whose powers of detection are sharpened by the ghost of Hamish, his fallen comrade. Rutledge uncovers the connection not only between the rector's murder and the race, but links to the disappearance of a local ne'er-do-well, a case of arson, and a missing girl. Despite the high body count, the pacing feels a bit slow. A perfectly competent but unexceptional entry in the crowded niche of interwar English village mysteries.

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February 1, 2017
During WWI, on the eve of the Battle of the Somme, seven British officers promise to reunite in Paris after the war to stage an informal road race to Nice. The surviving five meet as planned, and, during their race, two of them nearly die in what appear to be deliberate attempts to cause their cars to crash. A year later, in England, a parish priest dies in an automobile accident; oddly, but perhaps not coincidentally, the car he was driving is owned by one of the British officers. Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge is tasked with finding out what's going on; when his car is tampered with, too, apparently with the intent of doing him serious harm, he becomes determined to catch the culprit with all possible speed. The long-running Rutledge series has developed a devoted audience over the years, and this latest effort, boasting a clever story with some interesting twists, will do nothing to diminish readers' enthusiasm for a fascinating character and some first-rate historical writing.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)