A False Mirror

Felicity was in love with Stephen Mallory, but Mallory left the English harbor town of Hampton Regis and went away to fight in the Great War and Felicity married Matthew. It happens. Home again, Stephen finds himself the suspect in the beating of Matthew. Stephen claims he is innocent, but he has a strange way of showing it. He takes Felicity hostage, her maid too. Holding two women hostage usually will not endear you to the police and needless to say they frown on Stephen's behavior. However, Stephen is willing to talk to them, but only to someone he trusts, someone he'd served with, Inspector Ian Rutledge. But Rutledge doesn't trust Mallory. Still he's got a job to do, a case to investigate, and if Stephen Mallory is innocent he needs to find out who attacked Felicity's husband. This might not be so easy for Rutledge, because he doesn't know just how objective he can be as he'd lost someone he'd loved to another man, just as Mallory had, and it bothers him. Is Mallory innocent or not? How can he be sure? Then to further complicate the situation, Felicity's husband vanishes. This does not look good for Stephen Mallory. The mother and son writing team of Caroline and Charles, who work under the name Charles Todd, have really turned out an exciting thriller with A FALSE MIRROR. The characters seem real as does the setting in England after the first World War. They nail the sense of time and place and they really get into the mind and heart of Inspector Rutledge. This is a very good story, a thriller you not only won't be able to put down, but one you'll be thinking about for a long time after you finish the story. I have not read the other Inspector Rutledge mysteries, but after reading this I am looking forward to getting myself to Borders and getting a copy of A LONG SHADOW and A TEST OF WILLS. I know they'll be just as good.

Charles Todd is one of my favorite authors or should I say two of my favorite authors since it is mother/son writing team, something I did not know until this novel. I think it is the perfect melding of history, suspense, and tortured hero that is so riveting in the Ian Rutledge series. I look forward with anticipation to each and every novel. A FALSE MIRROR has Ian Rutledge investigating a beating in the small harbor town of Hampton Regis. The year is 1920, and Rutledge is continued to be tortured by his part in the death of Hamish Macleod who served under him in the war. He was forced to execute Hamish after he refused to obey a direct order. Now Hamish is a voice inside his head that never seems to disappear, never allowing Rutledge to forget the horror, but is also a voice that is an observer to all that goes on around Rutledge giving voice to his insights. Rutledge arrives in Hampton Regis at the request of Stephen Mallory, who not only served with Rutledge but also despised him. Mallory is accused of beating Matthew Hamilton out of jealousy because Mallory was engaged to Felicity Hamilton before the war. He has escaped to the Hamilton house, and takes Felicity and her maid hostage (or so it seems). He wants Rutledge to find the real culprit behind the beating. More than one murder takes place before Rutledge is able to unravel the mysteries of the darker underbelly in the small sleepy town. One one level Charles Todd has written a cozy whodunit, but to call it that does it a disservice. Charles Todd writes a psychological study of human frailty as much as a mystery novel. The novel is rich in characterization with a sympathetic protagonist and an effective cast of secondary characters. Todd gives a realistic sense of time and place. There is nothing that feels modern that sneaks through in the writing. You really feel like you are back in 1920. Highly recommended.

Inspector Ian Rutledge has been called to Hampton Regis on the southern coast of England. Facility Hamilton is in love with two men; her husband, Matthew, and Stephen Mallory. When Matthew is attacked and nearly killed, Mallory is everyone's immediate suspect, and he knows it. Mallory runs to Facility, bars them in the house and with Facility's collusion, claims he will kill her unless they send for Rutledge to prove Mallory's innocence. Rutledge is definitely the prime character of the story, and wonderfully developed and complex. The surrounding characters may not all have been likable, but they were strongly written. The sense of time and place are so evocative, it's easy to feel part of the scene. The story was very well plotted. There was no way for me to see where the story was going and each new element drew me further in. The theme of the impact of war on those who've fought is and timely, but doesn't overwhelm the story, and the ending was particularly poignant. This was an excellent book in an excellent series.

Charles Todd (actually a mother and son from the United States) have given us another solid mystery in the Inspector Rutledge series. The fascination of this series continues to be the impact of WWI on the haunted inspector. The mystery itself is important, and well thought out, but equally important is the process by which Rutledge comes to the inevitable conclusion of his cases. His mind sees through a glass darkly, and his demons are ever present. This is a very good series, and I look forward to more, having read every one since this series debuted.

Its prose tinged with memory and regret, this tenth Charles Todd novel to feature Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, is a superbly crafted tale which, at its heart, is about relationships. Having read the earlier novels in the series, the relationship between Rutledge and Hamish is by now a familiar one, and it's difficult to imagine one without the other. Indeed, Hamish, whatever he may be, has become a necessary tool for the excavation of Rutledge's inner, thoughts and is sometimes more acute an observer of the nuances of their surroundings than Rutledge. Indeed, the novel's more conventional relationships, between spouses, sweethearts, former lovers, friends and enemies, all show how our observations of one another come together to form life as we know it, and how one misreading can destroy the whole fragile framework. Working to uncover the perpetrator of a series of murders in London's Green Park, Rutledge is surprised to be taken off the London case and ordered to Hampton Regis, a picturesque fishing village on the south coast of England. Stephen Mallory, who served with and despised Rutledge in the war, has been accused of brutally beating a local man, Matthew Hamilton. Mallory is convinced he will never be treated fairly by the local authorities because he was engaged to Hamilton's wife before the war, and has taken his former fiancee and her maid hostage, declaring he will only negotiate with Rutledge. Rutledge knows there is more to this situation than local authorities would have him believe--if only because Mallory has chosen him as his intermediary. When the nearly comatose Hamilton disappears from the local physician's house, leaving a dead body in his wake, Rutledge becomes convinced that Mallory is innocent, and Hamilton's beating might be at the root of something more complex than imagined. On its surface, A False Mirror, is a conventional and highly readable English murder mystery, but a closer look reveals a complex and engrossing study of the nature of seeing and being seen that anyone who enjoys tight plotting and deep characterization will enjoy. Armchair Interviews says: A 5-star read!