Search the Dark (Inspector Ian Rutledge Novels) - Hardcover

Todd, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312200005 ISBN 13: 9780312200008

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1999

Synopsis

Scotland Yard's most intrepid inspector is sent to Dorset with strict orders to coordinate the search for two missing children, but his investigation is complicated by his growing feelings for a potential suspect.

About this title

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 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

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0312200005
• ISBN 13: 9780312200008
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 279