A Fine Summer's Day

November 24, 2014
Series fans will appreciate Todd’s 17th Ian Rutledge mystery (after 2014’s Hunting Shadows), a prequel set in the summer of 1914. Rutledge, a Scotland Yard inspector, has just gotten engaged, and as the guns of August loom, he lands a tricky murder case in Dorset. Furniture maker Ben Clayton—who had no obvious enemies—was hanged from his staircase by an intruder. More deaths follow, but a scene that Todd (the mother-son writing team of Caroline and Charles Todd) presents early on makes this a thriller rather than a whodunit. The writing is as sharp as ever, but without the series regular Hamish MacLeod, whom Rutledge was forced to execute during WWI for disobeying orders and who subsequently haunts the shell-shocked Rutledge as a sort of ghostly Watson, newcomers won’t appreciate how extraordinary this series is. Five-city author tour. Agent: Jane Chelius, Jane Chelius Literary Agency.

January 1, 2015

It was a fine summer's day in 1914 when life changed for so many people: Scotland Yard inspector Ian Rutledge proposed to his longtime companion, Jean Gordon, Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, and the death of a mother sparked a trail of murders, leading Rutledge across the English countryside in search of the killer. As Rutledge closes in on the solution to the case, rumors of war become a reality, and the inspector must not only deal with the aftermath of his investigation but also face the increasing needs of his betrothed, family, Scotland Yard, and Britain itself. VERDICT In this prequel and 17th series entry (after Hunting Shadows), Rutledge deals with a killer's past and his own future in a country readying for war. A tight plot keeps readers on the edge until the stunning final pages. [See Prepub Alert, 7/28/14.]

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2015
Before WWI, before he had the haunting voice of a dead soldier in his head, Ian Rutledge was a Scotland Yard inspector. This new entry in the Rutledge series is an origin story, a chance to see a familiar character in unfamiliar circumstances. It's June 1914. Archduke Ferdinand has just been assassinated in Sarajevo, an event that barely registers on the periphery of Rutledge's consciousness; Rutledge, you see, is much more concerned with matters closer to home, like his impending marriage proposal to a beautiful woman and, less happily, a series of murders that will require all of his skills to solve. Interestingly, even though he has yet to endure the events that will torture him for many years, Rutledge is strikingly familiar here, a sharp-witted and relentless investigator with a strong sense of compassion. A very welcome addition to, and expansion of, a much-loved series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)