Wings of Fire [Mass Market Paperback]

Charles Todd (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 1999 | Series: Wings of Fire (Book 2)

Inspector Ian Rutledge is quickly sent to investigate the sudden deaths of three members of the same eminent Cornwall family, but the World War I veteran soon realizes that nothing about this case is routine. Including the identity of one of the dead, a reclusive spinster unmasked as O. A. Manning, whose war poetry helped Rutledge retain his grasp on sanity in the trenches of France. Guided by the voice of Hamish, the Scot he unwillingly executed on the battlefield, Rutledge is driven to uncover the haunting truths of murder and madness rooted in a family crypt...

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When A Test of Wills, Charles Todd's first mystery about a shell-shocked World War I veteran, came out, it was such an original and successfully executed concept that readers were torn between wanting more and wondering how he could possibly pull off a sequel. Todd does it very simply: he pushes the gimmick sideways and makes his Scotland Yard detective, Ian Rutledge, much more personally involved in the death of one of the possible murder victims than he was in the first book. While the voice of Hamish, the Scottish soldier he executed for battlefield cowardice, still growls in his mind, Inspector Rutledge also feels very deeply about Olivia Marlowe, a supposed suicide in the Cornwall town of Borcombe. He knew her as O. A. Manning, a poet whose books, especially the love poems collected in Wings of Fire, were "light and warmth and beauty intermingled with such passion that they sang in the heart as you read them. Wings of Fire had touched him in ways that few things had." Olivia's death, along with that of two members of her family, have brought Rutledge from London to investigate. But, as a sharp local clergyman tells him, "Be sure your own ghosts don't infringe on your logical mind--don't rain havoc on Borcombe in search of your own absolution." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In a brilliant return after his introduction in A Test of Wills (1996), Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge is dispatched to Cornwall to investigate three deaths?seemingly a double-suicide and an accident?that have occurred within weeks in the Trevelyan family. Still recovering from shell shock sustained while serving in France during WWI, Rutledge carries in his head the challenging voice of Hamish MacLeod, a Scottish soldier about whose battlefront death Rutledge experiences profound guilt. In the village of Borcombe, Rutledge learns that one of the apparent suicides, Olivia Marlowe, wrote as O.A. Manning, a poet whose work had uncannily captured both the misery of war and the passion and beauty of love. Olivia Marlowe and her devoted half-brother Nicholas Cheney died of poisoning within hours of each other. Another half-brother, Stephen FitzHugh, the only family member opposed to selling the family estate where Olivia and Nicholas lived, fell down the stairs to his death not long after the funeral. Searching for answers about the deaths and for an understanding of the poet, Rutledge finds himself on a decades-long trail of cleverly disguised murders. Todd's cast is sometimes hard to keep straight, but readers will find it hard to resist following Rutledge on this emotionally intense quest. Memorable characters, subtle plot twists, the evocative seaside setting and descriptions of architecture, the moors and the sea fully reward the attention this novel commands.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 323 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks (May 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312965680
• ISBN-13: 978-0312965686
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #92,925 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Charles and Caroline Todd are a mother-and-son writing team who live on the east coast of the United States. Caroline has a BA in English Literature and History, and a Masters in International Relations. Charles has a BA in Communication Studies with an emphasis on Business Management, and a culinary arts degree that means he can boil more than water. Caroline has been married (to the same man) for umpteen years, and Charles is divorced.

Charles and Caroline have a rich storytelling heritage. Both spent many evenings on the porch listening to their fathers and grandfathers reminisce. And a maternal grandmother told marvelous ghost stories. This tradition allows them to write with passion about events before their own time. And an uncle/great-uncle who served as a flyer in WWI aroused an early interest in the Great War.

Charles learned the rich history of Britain, including the legends of King Arthur, William Wallace, and other heroes, as a child. Books on Nelson and by Winston Churchill were always at hand. Their many trips to England gave them the opportunity to spend time in villages and the countryside, where there'a different viewpoint from that of the large cities. Their travels are at the heart of the series they began ten years ago.

Charles's love of history led him to a study of some of the wars that shape it: the American Civil War, WWI and WWII. He enjoys all things nautical, has an international collection of seashells, and has sailed most of his life. Golf is still a hobby that can be both friend and foe. And sports in general are enthusiasms. Charles had a career as a business consultant. This experience gave him an understanding of going to troubled places where no one was glad to see him arrive. This was excellent training for Rutledge's reception as he tries to find a killer in spite of local resistance.

Caroline has always been a great reader and enjoyed reading aloud, especially poetry that told a story. The Highwayman was one of her early favorites. Her wars are WWI, the Boer War, and the English Civil War, with a sneaking appreciation of the Wars of the Roses as well. When she's not writing, she's traveling the world, gardening, or painting in oils. Her background in international affairs backs up her interest in world events, and she's also a sports fan, an enthusiastic follower of her favorite teams in baseball and pro football. She loves the sea, but is a poor sailor. (Charles inherited his iron stomach from his father.) Still, she has never met a beach she didn't like.

Both Caroline and Charles share a love of animals, and family pets have always been rescues. There was once a lizard named Schnickelfritz. Don't ask.

Writing together is a challenge, and both enjoy giving the other a hard time. The famous quote is that in revenge, Charles crashes Caroline's computer, and Caroline crashes his parties. Will they survive to write more novels together? Stay tuned! Their father/husband is holding the bets.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#43 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Police Procedurals

#75 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals

#95 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery

#43 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Police Procedurals

#75 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals

#95 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 50 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Kept me guessing -- and that's not easy September 8, 1999

By Annette G. deBellefeuille

Format:Mass Market Paperback

I am an avid mystery reader. I am loyal to certain writers -- so much so that I often begin to pick up on their pattern. However, I have found a special place in my heart for historical mysteries -- Anne Perry's two series and the Amelia Peabody series are examples.

Ordinarily, I start to figure it out by the middle. Todd's book not only kept me guessing until the very last page, it satisfied a hunger for historical detail that is not anachronistic.

This book kept me up all night. I simply could not put it down as I found myself thinking about the characters in the dark trying to fall asleep.

I have two of Todd's books and will be ordering a third soon. I recommend the book and the author very highly.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Was It Murder? April 29, 2006

By JAD

Format:Mass Market Paperback

"Wings of Fire" is one of the series of Ian Rutledge mysteries by the author Charles Todd--a mother/son American writing team, in fact, the second in the series. Set in post World War I Britain, these mysteries have as their compelling main character Ian Rutledge, a Scotland Yard inspector who is the worse for the war, but slowly mending.

In this book, Rutledge is called upon to research a brother and sister double suicide, followed shortly thereafter by a third death in the family. Rutledge travels to the Cornish coast this time, and as in the other books, he travels in the company of his dead sergeant, Hamish, who speaks his mind to Rutledge as he works through the investigation.

This mystery involves a beautiful house by the sea, and is peopled by both the gentry who have lived in that house and the inhabitants of the local village, including the vicar, the doctor and so forth. The house and its setting may remind some readers of "Rebecca", especially since the memory of the home's now dead mistress seems to permeate the proceedings, even as her portrait presides over the drawing room.

The book does not get off to a fast paced start--indeed, it seems a bit slow in the first 100 pages. And for this reader, there is not enough conversation from Hamish in that portion or in the rest of the book. Unlike others in the series, we do not hear much of Hamish's actual words--more often Todd tells us that Hamish was grumbling or making some remark. But we don't "hear" the remark. A pity, that.

I felt that the writing was a tad uneven. I would be bogged down in a section of the book, say, about half of a chapter, and then all of the sudden the pace picked up, the storyline became more compelling, and I was eager to know more. Then, back to the slower pace and, for me, a challenge to get through it to the next, livelier portion.

Occasionally, Todd takes us to a higher plain of psychological and perhaps even theological conversation--several of the interviews Rutledge has with the vicar provide the setting for some of these. They are among the best passages in the book.

Since the work of a famous poet figures in the story, we are also treated to more than prose from Todd's hand, and the sections of verse are deftly done.

The last several chapters are quite good--both as the mystery is revealed and the creativity shown by the author in settings and dialogue. It made me go back and read the first chapter again, once I had finished the final chapter.

This is the second 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 At one point, that website indicated that a Rutledge book was going to be adapted for the Mystery series on PBS...

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.

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspector Rutledge & Alter-Ego Hamish Are Superb Characters - An Outstanding Mystery!! September 4, 2005

By Jana L. Perskie HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

"Wings of Fire," the second book in the Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery series, is absolutely outstanding, both as a whodunit and as a developing character study. The protagonist, his unique circumstances, and the period in which the novel is set, are most singular and make this a truly 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.

World War I was devastating for the British people, militarily and psychologically. "In July 1917, at the Battle of Ypres, (better known as the Battle of Passchendaele - Belgium), 70,000 British soldiers died and another 170,000 were wounded." Combined with the disastrous Battle of the Somme, fought in France just a year before, with its 420,000 British casualties (60,000 on the very first day of fighting), the Somme marked "the end of an age of vital optimism in British life that has never been recovered," wrote historian John Keegan in "The First World War." 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 would bring back the relative innocence of life before 1914, people are slowly rebuilding their lives and a society that had been so hideously interrupted as the story opens.

In Scotland Yard, Inspector Ian Rutledge, who was an army officer in France and a survivor of the Somme, has resumed his once promising career, against his doctors' advice. After falling under direct shelling and being buried alive in a frontline trench, he suffered an emotional breakdown - they called it shell shock. Rutledge 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 Scot who served under him. Macleod had refused to continue fighting and Rutledge was forced to order his execution. Ian 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.

Rudtlege has just returned from Warwickshire, where he solved a gruesome and politically charged murder, ("A Test of Wills"), his first post-war success. He finds that an unknown slasher, who had brutally attacked several women in London's White Chapel area before his trip to Warwickshire, was still on the loose and that the newspapers were resurrecting old Jack the Ripper stories to terrify an already frightened public. When his nemesis, Bowles, asks to see him, Ian expects to be assigned to the slasher case. On the contrary, with all the new publicity, Bowles wants the limelight for himself, and so assigns Rutledge to a seemingly unimportant case in Cornwall. The inspector, exhausted, looks forward to being by the sea.

So he travels south on what is thought to be a fool's errand, to Borcombe on the Cornish coast. A brother and sister from the area's most prominent family had committed double suicide there, in the beautiful country house overlooking the ocean where they had lived together all their relatively short lives. Both were in their 30's at the time of death. Olivia Marlowe had been crippled with poliomyelitis as a child, and although her half brother, Nicholas Cheney, fashioned a brace for her to enable her to get around, sometimes she had a great deal of pain. Another half brother, Stephen FitzHugh died just a few days after the suicides, in the same house, from an accidental fall. Lady Ashford, a politically connected cousin to all three diseased persons, felt there had been a "hasty judgement, and that insufficient consideration had been given to the likelihood of murder" - three suspicious deaths over a period of a few days. She asked Scotland Yard to reopen the case.

From the first, the local constable tells Rutledge that there is absolutely no evidence to support foul play in any of the deaths. Olivia, a reclusive spinster, had been in pain, and although Nicholas was only in his early thirties, he had been gassed at Ypres and suffered terribly at times because of his damaged lungs. Stephen, the third dead family member, had been retrieving some paperwork from the upstairs study and in his rush to leave, he fell down the steps, breaking his neck. He had lost a foot in the war and his balance was off because of it. It is during this discussion that Rutledge learns Olivia Marlowe is, in fact, O. A. Manning, a famous poet whose war poetry had touched him deeply. Her verse had meant so much to him in his darkest hours. Her true identity as the writer had just came to light with her demise. Only Nicholas knew the truth. Rutledge is seriously disturbed by this information, wondering how the woman who wrote such magnificent poems could have killed herself.

Guided by the voice of Hamish, the man he unwillingly had executed on the battlefield, (which is, of course, Rutledge's own unconscious mind), Ian begins to uncover the haunting truths of murder and madness within a family. He realizes how his findings had so effected the entire family for so long, and now will forever change the future of the surviving kin. Here are people who struggled for years against an evil they could not defeat, until one man finally brings them all closure. What haunts Rutledge, and left me so moved, is that he arrived so late to the scene.

Todd's descriptions of post war England, the main characters, the villagers, even the scenery are extraordinary. I also want to mention that bits and pieces of poetry are included in the novel, supposedly Olivia Marlowe's/ O. A. Manning's work. It seems to have been written by Charles Todd. I think it is very good verse - worth taking note of anyway.

Don't be daunted by the number of half brothers, sisters and family history involved in this superbly wrought mystery. There was one mother who married three times. Author Todd does a good job of explaining it all. Oddly, Mr. Todd, who writes like a native of the UK, is an American. I definitely plan to read the third 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 gave the debut novel 4+ stars. This one is an easy 5. Highly recommended!

JANA