A Matter of Justice (Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries, 11)

Every great literary detective has a special quirk: Poirot has his little grey cells; Marple has her fleecy knitting; Rumpole has his claret and Wordsworth; and Morse has his pint and his opera. In the tradition of these notable exemplar's, Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard, the creditable sleuth of Charles Todd's "A Matter of Justice," has his Hamish. Acting as a sort of Greek (or Scottish) chorus, Hamish, who was killed going over the top in the Great War, lives on in Rutledge's head, persistently offering advice, often unsought, on the case at hand. His existence certainly renders Ian Rutledge one of the most interesting detective protagonists that I have encountered of late. "A Matter of Justice" is set in England of 1920. And although it contains a continuity error (e.g., Betty, described as "age forty" on page 90 becoming "an elderly woman" on page 294), the book held my interest throughout. The characters are believable and the mystery is intriguing. Mr. Todd takes the time to develop his characters and to describe his settings, which include Devonshire, a Somerset village, and one of the Scilly Isles, off the coast of Cornwall. I suppose that this mystery is one that would be called a "cozy" in the trade. I enjoyed it thoroughly and would recommend it to anyone who likes an old-fashioned mystery which presents a complex puzzle to be solved with a nice cup of tea.

In future stories, I would really like Ian Rutledge to start having some fun. Really. And maybe even some romance. With a spunky, intelligent, well-bred lady. Is he getting there in "A Matter of Justice"? The book is Charles Todd's eleventh Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery, and he's still got a ways to go. Every one of the novels is a month more back on his job as a homicide investigator at Scotland Yard. Rutledge's four years as an officer in the deathly, stinking trenches in France in World War One left their mark. He still has demons. In his own mind, he still endures the haunting presence of the voice of one Hamish McLeod, a good and moral man who had to be executed for refusing to order the men to advance suicidally over the top into No Man's Land. While hospitalized after the war, Rutledge's condition so frightened his fiancée that she fled and married someone else. Now at the Yard, can Rutledge still perform as confidently and successfully as he did before the war? "A Matter of Justice" opens with a younger son, Ronald Evering, jealously remembering his mother's greater love for her favorite, the older son, Lieutenant Timothy Evering, who had been murdered by two of his own men in the Boer War in South Africa. "Kill them," the mother had commanded Ronald, "Send them to hell, and I'll love you then." Traveling to South Africa ten years later to retrieve his elder brother's body, the young son had learned of the murder and the identity of the murderers, Privates Quarles and Penrith. The evidence came from a wounded Boer soldier who had witnessed the event from his place of hiding. As the years passed, Ronald Evering found that the traitorous pair had gone on to success in the financial world in London. To be closer to them and bide his time, he had even invested with them and gotten cheated. This old military murder, introduced in the first few pages of the book, hangs hauntingly over the entire story. Though Quarles was respected in the business circles of London, he was almost universally hated farther west in the village near his country house. There he was known for his arrogant treatment of the villagers and as a seducer of wives and daughters. Even Quarles's wife hated him. One evening Quarles is found murdered and grotesquely strung up in a barn on his estate. There is no shortage of suspects. The local police call in Scotland Yard for help, which brings in Rutledge. The many characters and their relationships are well drawn. The plotting proceeds expertly, and the resolution is a complex matter of justice. An engaging and satisfying read (330 pages).

A MATTER OF JUSTICE by Charles Todd Oddly enough, a good review is harder to write than a bad one, particularly if a book "worked". And this one worked for me so it is hard to pick it apart and talk about the various elements. I'm a huge fan of Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries. They are classic "underdog" tales of a man struggling against impossible odds. Rutledge is fighting internal demons brought on by shell shock, in the form of the ghostly voice and presence of Hamish. Then there is his boss who for his own ambition has a personal bias against Rutledge and would rather see him fail than suceed. Finally, there is the evil and chaos of murder. Rutledge has returned to work as a detective as a way to cling to reality and focus his mind, to keep his sanity in post-WWI Great Britain. Puzzling out who may have been driven to kill another human being keeps Rutledge from thinking too much about himself. He has so much against him and this sense of barely clinging on gives the books a great deal of their tension. A MATTER OF JUSTICE reflects all of these elements, but with a difference that shows the growth of the writer. It's going to be hard to avoid giving too much away, so if this is a little short or mysterious, it is because I do not want to spoil it for other readers. Overall, the story is very much like previous Rutledge mysteries. Ian Rutledge faces impossible odds, both personal and professional, in solving the strange and puzzling death of Quarles, who post mortem is dressed as a Christmas angel complete with wings, and strung up in a barn. An interesting twist, to be sure. However, especially in the beginning of the tale, the author has changed the Rutledge formula slightly. One might say Todd has even borrowed intriguing tricks from other mystery series and enhanced them. In fact, some mystery readers may recognize in the first few chapters the technique used in the wildly successful COLUMBO mysteries. In COLUMBO, the tension comes from the viewer (or the reader) knowing who the killer is, poised against Columbo's skill and the fear that the detective may be unable to pin it on the real murderer. The more skillful the killer, the more Columbo has to work to implicate him (or her). In this book, Todd tips his hand--but not completely--in the first few chapters. He gives us a motive and perhaps a possible murderer of good old Quarles, but the murder plot as conceived by the killer may be too convoluted for success. Even the murderer has his doubts when he sets it in motion. And so, because of the evil Quarles has done, it is just as possible that someone else killed him. And regardless of who killed him, we totally want Quarles to die. So as a reader, we can understand why someone--possibly more than one someone--might want the man dead. But despite the beginning, you really don't know who exactly killed Quarles. Hence, the mystery. And while Todd's technique is changing and improving, his portrayel of Rutled

Inspector Ian Rutledge is in top form in this very complicated mystery. Of course he has the help of Hamish, the voice in his head of a soldier he killed in WW1. This story begins with a horrible event during the Boer War. Twenty years later the consequences come home to roost. The villians are finally punihed for the acts they committed.There is a very realistic depiction of village life where the murder of the village squire in his Tithe barn takes place in a very unique way.I really liked this book and it kept me guessing until the end. I am sure most mystery lovers will find it really will help pass a cold winter day reading in a cozy room.

Plays in the interwar years: a Scotland Yard inspector is despatched to an English village to solve the murder of an unpopular man who bought an estate in the area. Everyone in the village hated him, including the local police man, so the solving of the crime turns into a critical sifting of the misleading statements and non-statements made by different witnesses. One gets a nice sense of the dynamics of village life, and the period/historical touches are accurate and lend depth to the story. There is a counterpoint with an earlier incident in the Boer War that is also well-sketched. The inspector is a veteran of WWI trench warfare, and he has a "voice in his ear" from Hamish, one of his (dead) men, that adds an interesting psychological frisson and commentary to the different interviews that the inspector makes. Usually I don't care for paranormal stuff, but this was just enough on the border of the psychological that I enjoyed it very much. However, Hamish's accent was annoying--not very authentic. I loved the story, though. I was unfamiliar with this series before, but I am going to be seeking out the earlier titles this afternoon. The book reads a bit like a combination of early Agatha Christie both in the storytelling and the emotional restraint of the narrative with the psychological depth of Pat Barker. I loved it!