Customer Reviews

A Test of Wills (Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This was the first of Todd's books introducing readers to Rutledge and Hammish. I actually disagree with one of the previous reviewers that Hammish should 'leave'. Having family members who came back from WWI very scarred and subdued (from their letters and diaries), I can imagine that the British soldiers came back in even worse shape, than the Americans. We've only just started delving into the conditions known as post-traumatic stress disorder. Before the Vietnam War, this disorder was not recognized and treated as an illness. WWI veterans were referred to as being shell-shocked, but it wasn't just the noise from the constant bombardment. Most of these men were not even men yet, merely adolescents. They were exposed to trauma that we can only guess at: constant noise, mud, chemical warfare at its nastiest, dealing with daily fear and situations which would leave most of us very damaged. Yet when they came home, they were expected to 'buck up' and get over it, because society didn't understand what they had gone through.

Todd's history is much better then his mystery. I've read another of his further down the line, and enjoyed it very much. This first book tended to bog down, and there was not enough information to even expect the possibility of who the person responsible for the murder was. I was caught by surprise by the last couple of chapters, and it was not logical or sequential.

To be fair, this was a more than adequate first book. I am pleased to find another author who can write well, and since I expect that Todd will probably just get better as he continues writing these books (especially since I really enjoyed the last one I read)...I will continue to look for his material. If the reader enjoys an intelligent mystery, this is a good author to go to.
Karen Sadler
University of Pittsburgh

In the charming village of Upper Streetham, Colonel Harris, a kind and good man and a veteran of both the Boer War and the Great War, is shot dead in so foul a manner that his corpse is horribly deformed. His ward, Lettice Wood, her fiancé the famed flying ace Captain Mark Wilton, and a host of supporting characters all come to the attention of Inspector Rutledge, who has been sent to investigate this politically charged case, by his jealous superior, "Old Bowels" who would like nothing more than to see Rutledge disgraced.

Now if that doesn't make you want to put down the remote and get reading, well how about this...

Rutledge will be helped in his detecting by an unseen but not silent partner, Hamish MacLeod. Hamish is - well, who is he? A ghost from the battlefield? A figment of Rutledge's shell-shocked imagination? A stabilizing presence for the Inspector, who has not yet fully recovered from his ordeal in the war? The first sign of Rutledge's impending descent into madness?

You be the judge.

Poke around Upper Streetham with Rutledge and Hamish. Visit the famous artist who lives in the town, the Sommers sisters, one shy and one outgoing, the flying ace's cousin and perhaps lover the widowed Sally Davenant, the faithful (or his he?) estate manager Laurence Royston. Suspects all. Scotland Yard would like the mystery solved quickly, but Rutledge moves at a pace that will get to the truth, even if it means the embarrassment of Buckingham Palace and the end of his wobbly career.

Will Hamish help or hinder him?

And how will the Inspector deal with the fact that one of the chief suspects is also a veteran of the war, not yet healed?

This is the first in remarkable series of classic whodunits. The reader will be hooked. And will wish to read all of the Rutledge mysteries, in order. A Test of Wills, Wings of Fire, Search the Dark, Legacy of the Dead, Watchers of Time, A Fearsome Doubt, A Cold Treachery, A Long Shadow. There is also a stand-alone Todd mystery called A Murder Stone, without Rutledge or Hamish. Read more about them at: www.Charlestodd.com

Todd intertwines the supporting characters from book to book, so that Rutledge's and Hamish's friends and family you meet herein will appear in subsequent books, at some times, mentioned, and other times, key to the story.

If you find this review helpful you might want to read some of my other reviews, including those on subjects ranging from biography to architecture, as well as religion and fiction.

"A Test of Wills" is the first book in the Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery series, and while this whodunit is good, it is not exceptional. The protagonist, his unique circumstances, and the period in which the novel is set, however, are most unique and make this a very special read. It is 1919 England and the Great War is over. Soldiers have returned to their homes and families. Many are maimed in mind and body. And then there are those who do not return at all. Approximately 720,000 British soldiers, (from the UK alone), were killed in WWI. Then the terrible influenza epidemic of 1918 devastated the country, and all of Europe, killing millions. Although nothing will bring back the relative innocence of life before 1914, people are slowly rebuilding their lives and a society that had been so hideously interrupted.

In Scotland Yard, Inspector Ian Rutledge, who was an army officer in France, is resuming his once promising career. He is also keeping a terrible secret. After falling under direct shelling and being buried alive in a frontline trench, he suffered an emotional breakdown - they called it shell shock. He has not recovered. The doctors told him that hearing voices is not uncommon for a soldier who had undergone such a traumatic incident. It is a way for his mind to accept something of its own creation, in order to conceal what it cannot face otherwise. The particular voice that the Inspector hears is that of Corporal Hamish Macleod, a young man who had served under him. Macleod had refused to continue fighting and Rutledge ordered his execution. He knows that if he does not succeed in recovering the skills he had before the war, he may well wind up in a sanitarium for the rest of his life. He is determined to put one foot in front of the other and fight his debilitating illness before it destroys him. Superintendent Bowles, Rutledge's unscrupulous superior, is jealous of his subordinate's pre-war success and has learned of his mental instability. He is determined to see the man fail.

In the village of Upper Streetham, Warwickshire, Colonel Charles Harris, an ex-Army officer, has been murdered and the Chief suspect is Captain Mark Wilton, a Victoria Cross decorated war hero, friend of the royal family, and fiance to the dead man's ward. When the local police request the aid of Scotland Yard, Bowles assigns the politically charged case to Rutledge.

The Inspector actually does begins to function despite his alter ego's harassment and running commentary. He finds more than one person with a motive to murder the Colonel. The complex psychological study and mystery unfold with much suspense and, although the pace slows at times, the character study of Rutledge more than makes up for any weaknesses in the narrative. The Inspector is a really special character and it is impossible not to like and admire him. His empathy with both victims and suspects is extraordinary. Even under extreme stress, it is clear why he was such a strong leader under fire. In a way he represents a generation of emotionally fragile veterans, trying to resume life after a carnage such as the world had never seen before.

Author Charles Todd writes of Rutledge: "Before the war it had been the case that drove him night and day - partly from a gritty determination that murderers must be found and punished. He had believed deeply in that, with the single-minded idealism of youth and a strong sense of moral duty towards victims who could no longer speak for themselves. But the war had altered his viewpoint, had shown him that the best of men could kill, given the right circumstances, as he himself had done over and over again. Not only the enemy, but his own men, sending them out to be slaughtered even when he had known beyond doubt that they would die and that the order to advance was madness."

Todd's descriptions of post war England, the main characters and the villagers, even the scenery are extraordinary. Oddly, Mr. Todd, who writes like a native of the UK, is an American. I definitely plan to read the second book in the series. Ian Rutledge has become very real to me, as has Hamish. I am rooting for the two to merge and am certainly interested in their further activities. I give this first effort 4+ stars. Highly recommended!
JANA

"A Test of Wills" is the debut episode by Charles Todd, set in immediate post-World War I in England. The author draws readily upon that horror--and blight--of the early 20th century, and he does so with his introduction to the reader of Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard, who has been seconded from London to Warwickshire to investigate the death of gentried Colonel Charles Harris, loved, revered, respected by everybody but one! Chief suspect, it seems, is Captain Mark Wilton, betrothed to marry the Colonel's ward, and himself a highly decorated war hero and pilot. Todd's accounting of the horrors, the very carnage of that Great War with its telling descriptions of the trench warfare is graphic and vivid.

Rutledge, himself, shell-shocked and uncertain in his own right, sets out his investigation--keeping an open mind and remembering all the while that closed English villages can be just that--closed to outsiders. He must keep, too, his own recollection of his wartime experiences. Rutledge is aided, believably, by the voice of a soldier Rutledge had ordered killed in the trenches for disobeying an order (certainly an original "Dr. Watson" to his "Sherlock"!).

While capturing much local color, landscape and atmosphere, Todd, however, opts for an easy solution, one which is out of kilter with the remainder of the story and thus closes with an awkward stance. While this is the first of a series--and I am prepared to read the second episode--"A Test of Wills" falls short of mesmerizing detail, of gripping intrigue. (Billyjhobbs@tyler.net)

Charles Todd's 1996 A Test of Wills is a good, old fashioned mystery. Todd's story features a dogged detective, a brutal killing, numerous suspects, and suspect witnesses. It is also clean (no sex, no foul language). An added plus is the detective's own battle with shell shock following World War I, including an ongoing dialogue with his personal demon, Hamish, a deserting soldier he was forced to execute on the battlefield. Todd writes extremely well; his prose is clear, descriptive, fresh, wholly lacking cliche. His characters (especially Rutledge, the detective) are well-drawn, believable. The story itself is well plotted, leaving the reader in doubt until the denouement in the final pages. Wills is Todd's first novel; I look forward to his next!

I bought this book because it was listed to be one of the top 100 mysteries of the 20th century. I can often figure out "whodunit" when I read mysteries, and I appreciate a book where I am unable to do so, as happened here. Yet when the truth was revealed, I realized that I had been given all of the clues.

I thought the character of Inspector Ian Rutledge was very well drawn; I was really able to sympathize with his struggle with shell shock, self-doubt and lost love. Although his shell shock contributed a lot to how he dealt with the murder case, it didn't distract from the mystery. His shell shock manifests as the voice of Hamish, a soldier under his command, who Rutledge had shot for desertion on the front in France. Some of Hamish's comments were obscure, but I didn't think he got in the way.

The story held me in a pretty good grip, accelerating to the end. It was hard to put down in the last several chapters. All in all, very well done, and I think deserving of a spot on the top 100 mysteries.

Inspector Ian Rutledge has returned from four years service in the trenches of World War I, and Scotland Yard has assigned him his first case after his return. He has an enemy in the Yard who assigns him a particularly tough case, envisioning him messing it up and arresting the obvious prime suspect, another war hero who was awarded the Victoria Cross. Rutledge balks at making a hasty arrest, however, and spends a week in the English countryside investigating thoroughly.

Rutledge is an interesting character. He's haunted by the war, and by things he did in the middle of it. He hears a voice in his head, often, a particular individual who served with him in the war, but has opinions on everything that passes within Rutledge's view. There are other characters in the book, all well-drawn and interesting, and there's much about the war and its effect on people, and their psyches.

The temptation is to compare this novel with Christie, Sayers, or perhaps Stout. Frankly, this is a bit thin. All of these writers wrote about their own era, more or less, and felt less need to recreate a bygone era. They also wrote in an era where elaborate plots and motives were almost required in mystery fiction, while characters were almost unimportant. Christie was especially notorious in this regard. The present author, by comparison, has produced a full, well-written novel with a puzzle in it. The clues that present themselves towards the solution of the story aren't as obvious signposts as Christie's, or Sayers' famous red herrings, but they are there, and if you read carefully enough I suppose you could solve the mystery (I never try).

The plot does drag in the middle a bit. Rutledge doesn't do anything for two hundred pages except question people repeatedly, asking the same questions and getting fuller answers as he persists in his investigation. When the action does finally heat up, it's only a bit, and the climax comes rather suddenly.

Given that, and the other complaints about the book enumerated above, I did enjoy this book, and will look for the others in the series.

Set in 1919, Todd's fine first novel features Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge, returned from the Great War with a secret - he suffers from shell shock and is haunted by the loud, taunting, cynical voice of a dead fellow soldier.

A spiteful, jealous colleague who harbors suspicions about Rutledge's mental health manages to have him assigned to a no-win case in a small village - the murder of a popular military officer. The chief suspect is a war hero and friend of the Prince of Wales. Worse, the chief witness is a deranged shell-shock victim.

As Rutledge tramps over the countryside, making his dogged way among the resentful relatives and friends of the victim (who have already chosen a convenient scapegoat), feretting out their painful secrets, his own precarious state threatens to expose him with every brush of a raw nerve.

Todd populates his novel with complex characters, each with the characteristic closeness of country villagers, and constructs an absorbing mystery (with perhaps a too surprising solution) in an atmospheric setting, but the real star of this novel is the protagonist. Without being overdone, Rutledge's edgy reality is gripping, the gibbering gnome on his shoulder a constant goad
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This is still the best of the series.

CONS: The pace is a bit slow, the ending is built around a hackneyed mystery gimmick, and the idea of a "Watson" as a tortured voice inside the detective's head (created by the psychological scars of WWI shell shock) works better in theory than in practice.

PROS: I enjoyed the detective, Rutledge, and his overall likeability, and I appreciated the sort of Golden Age feel that underlies the tone of the work (FYI: There is much more character psychology in this novel than you'd get from a 1930s puzzle mystery, which many modern readers will like while others won't).

By the time the killer was revealed in "A Test of Wills," Charles Todd's debut mystery with shell-shocked Inspector Ian Rutledge in charge, I had pretty much stopped caring "whodunit." The identity is indeed a suprise, and a good one at that, but I found getting there an extremely hard slog. Perhaps it's the polite Edwardian sensibility of the characters, perhaps Todd just isn't that skilled a writer; but the pace is glacial, and the presence of Hamish MacLeod, the ghost in Rutledge's head, while initially a unique plot device, for me quickly became a tiresome intrusion. And Todd doesn't quite, psychologically speaking, blow the lid off of British repression as much as he and his publicity machine would have us believe. More people than not have flipped over this mystery series, however, so you might give it a shot. But it's far from the taut, crackling good yarns of a Ruth Rendell or a P.D. James. I'd even reread an old Agatha Christie before continuing with the Rutledge mysteries.