Charles Todd A Long Shadow

A Long Shadow

Charles Todd

Morrow, Jan 2006, $23.95, 352 pp.

ISBN 006078671X

In 1919, someone murders the Dudlington constable as he apparently was investigating something in the nearby forest. Still haunted by severe guilt feelings about Corporal Hamish who he ordered executed for insubordination during WW I Rutledge is mentally more unstable than ever; on top of battle fatigue syndrome he also poorly copes with his recent investigation into a grisly mass murder (see A COLD TREACHERY). Still his police skills remains superb so he travels to the ends of world to investigate who shot an arrow into the constable's back.

The locals resent the outsider, but Rutledge still learns that a young girl recently vanished. He wonders if the disappearance and the homicide could be linked and seeks the connection. As he continues to dig for clues a woman claiming to be a psychic insists she can help his troubled soul as she asserts she can speak with the dead. Though he has doubts about her skills Rutledge leans towards trying to plead for forgiveness from Hamish. At the same time that the spiritualist has knocked him somewhat off his sleuthing game, an adversary plays cat and mouse with Rutledge, purposely leaving clues that suggest the culprit could kill the inspector at any time.

This is one of the best most haunting historical mystery series on the market today with the latest entry as powerful as the previous seven tales. Rutledge is an intriguing person struggling alone to deal with the haunting of his soul. The mystery is terrific and the insights into post WW I isolated northern England is insightful and vivid. However, as always it is the psychological look at a veteran unable to deal with what he did and saw during the war that makes Charles R. Todd's dark thriller a winner once again.

Harriet Klausner