![]() ![]() A tragic, flawed hero.maybe the best kind.ĭefinitely worth reading. Bowles to the village of Borcombe in Cornwall. ![]() The novels plots are good, but the character of Rutledge-and of his nemesis, Bowles, and all the other characters that appear in these stories-is compelling. WINGS OF FIRE by Charles Todd RELEASE DATE: MaScotland Yard's Inspector Ian Rutledge, still recovering from the ravages of his service in WW I, his thoughts haunted by the ghost of fellow soldier Hamish MacLeod, (A Test of Wills, 1996), is sent by Supt. But Todd-which, in reality, is the pen name of a mother-son writing team-is a very good writer. It could be a cheesy device in the hands of a less talented writer. Hamish argues with Rutledge, taunts him, reminds him of the hell he suffered in the trenches, and Rutledge's greatest fear is that other people will discover that a dead Scotsman talks inside his brain. He is "haunted" (more psychologically than supernaturally) by the ghost of Hamish, a Scottish corporal Rutledge had to have executed for refusing to obey orders on the battlefield. The risk Todd makes is that these novels depict Rutledge, a survivor of the trenches, as a man on the edge of a mental breakdown. ![]() ![]() Todd sets the Ian Rutledge novels in post-WWI England, which is an interesting historical time period, and the novels reflect that not-so-far-off world quite well, which enough periodic detail to satisfy a historian of the era. Mystery/police procedural novels can suffer from too much familiarity and cliche or from gimmicks. I've enjoyed the other Ian Rutledge mysteries I've read, but this was one of my favorites so far. ![]()
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