Search the Dark: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery

The introspective hero of Wings of Fire and A Test of Wills (Edgar Award nominee) returns in Search the Dark , a provocative new mystery by Charles Todd. Inspector Ian Rutledge, haunted by memories of World War I and the harrowing presence of Hamish, a dead soldier, is "a superb characterization of a man whose wounds have made him a stranger in his own land." ( The New York Times Book Review ) A dead woman and two missing children bring Inspector Rutledge to the lovely Dorset town of Singleton Magna, where the truth lies buried with the dead. A tormented veteran whose family died in an enemy bombing is the chief suspect. Dubious, Rutledge presses on to find the real killer. And when another body is found in the rich Dorset earth, his quest reaches into the secret lives of villagers and Londoners whose privileged positions and private passions give them every reason to thwart him. Someone is protecting a murderer. And two children are out there, somewhere, in the dark.... **

Amazon.com Review

In Search the Dark, the third entry in Charles Todd's remarkable series, the walking-wounded survivors of World War I crowd the English landscape. Scotland Yard's Inspector Rutledge is one of many who suffer from shell shock. He constantly hears--and responds to--the voice of Hamish, a Scottish soldier he shot for cowardice. His latest case does not help his fragile state of mind as it involves another weary and discouraged veteran, Bert Mowbray.

On his way to Lyme Regis to search for work, Bert looks out of the train window in a town called Singleton Magna, and sees an unbelievable sight--his wife and two children who he thought were killed in a London bombing raid. He leaps off the train and tries to find his family, racing desperately across fields and country roads, and finally winding up asleep under a tree. Meanwhile, the battered body of a woman is found on the edge of a cornfield, and Mowbray is arrested. Is the woman his wife? Did he kill her? And what happened to the two children who were with her?

Everywhere Rutledge looks, he shows us various forms of damage caused by the war--from the hopes of a local girl whose lover returned with a French wife, to the trauma that Mowbray is going through. As in the first two books, A Test of Wills and Wings of Fire, Todd demonstrates the massive damage done to an entire country by focusing on the small, personal battles of the survivors. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly

The third compelling Ian Rutledge mystery (Wings of Fire; A Test of Wills) takes the sensitive and appealing Scotland Yard inspector, a former WWI officer, to the countryside of Dorset. In 1919, another former soldier is arrested for murder in the town of Singleton Magna after the battered corpse of a young woman is found nearby. Withdrawn and suicidal, the suspect will speak to no one, and the police call Scotland Yard for help in finding the two young children who may have been in the dead woman's charge. Rutledge arrives, still carrying in his head the voice of Hamish MacLeod, a Scottish deserter whom he executed during the war and whose harsh, conscience-like presence in the inspector's mind seems to soften as the novel progresses, adding dimension to Todd's literary device. In his investigation, Rutledge encounters others whose spirits were ravaged in the war: Simon Wyatt, scion of local gentry, who has abandoned his plans to serve in Parliament; his French wife, unaccepted by the townspeople; Wyatt's former fianc?e, who may not have given up her previous expectations; a young local man whose head wound has left him mentally diminished; and an independent young woman from London. The discovery of a second woman's battered corpse further knots Rutledge's task, which is rooted, it evolves in this fine period mystery, as much in love as in war. Author tour. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

British Detective Ian Rutledge, the World War I veteran with remnants of shell shock, searches for two missing children in Dorset. The children's mother, meanwhile, has been murdered, but the accused, also a psychically tormented veteran, may be a scapegoat. A well-crafted historical from the author of Wings of Time (LJ 2/1/98).Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

It's the end of WWI and Inspector Ian Rutledge is back at his Scotland Yard jobphysically uninjured but plagued by the inner, nagging voice of dead soldier Hamish MacLeod (A Test of Wills, etc.). His first assignment takes him to the village of Singleton Magna in Dorset. There, bull-headed Inspector Hildebrand has in custody shell-shocked veteran Bert Mowbray, accused of killing a woman he'd seen on the train platform with two children, declaring the woman to be his wife. Mowbrays later search for her seems to have ended in a brutal killing, and now the search is on for the childrenand fast becoming a dead end. It soon develops that another person in the area is missing. In nearby Charlburg, Simon Wyatt, expected to follow in his father's illustrious political footsteps, has returned from the war with French wife Aurore and no ambition except to set up a small museum of Indian and Far Fast artifacts. His onetime near fiance Elizabeth Napier has brought him her London father's competent assistant to help with the museum. Now that assistant (Margaret Tarlton) has vanished, and Hildebrand refuses to exhume Mowbray's victim's body to verify her identity. Strangely enough, a body does surface; this time its that of Betty Cooper, a maid who worked for a local farm family but had higher aspirations. Her death provides further unneeded complicationsuntil, with little effort on Ian's part, all the unlikely answers come to light. A bit livelier than the author's previous work, with plenty of suspense despite its unfocused plot, unreal people, and too- leisurely style. Best for those who like their mystery melodramas written the old-fashioned way. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From the Publisher

What the critics are saying about Charles Todd's Inspector Ian Rutledge series

WINGS OF FIRE"Splendid imagery, in-depth characterization, and glimpses of more than one wounded psyche: an excellent historical mystery." --Library Journal

"The evocative seaside setting and descriptions of architecture, the moors, and the sea fully reward the attention this novel commands." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A well-crafted mystery that will please." --Booklist

"Fine characterizations, a superb eye for Cornwall and for post-World War I attitudes, and a wise and wily exploration of how some of us deal with guilt." --Robin Winks of the Boston Globe

"[Todd] wraps his challenging plot, complex characters, and subtle psychological insights in thick layers of atmosphere." --The New York Times Book Review

A TEST OF WILLS"Todd gives us a superb characterization of a man whose wounds have made him into a stranger in his own land, and a disturbing portrait of a country intolerant of all strangers." --The New York Times Book Review

"Todd depicts the outer and inner worlds of his characters with authority and sympathy as he closes in on his surprising--and convincing--conclusion." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"The emotional and physical carnage in World War I is used to remarkable effect." --Chicago Tribune