Charles Todd Books In Order

A Test Of Wills

It’s 1919, and the War to End All Wars has been won. But for Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, recently returned from the battlefields of France, there is no peace. Suffering from shell shock, tormented by the mocking, ever present voice of the young Scot he had executed for refusing to fight, Rutledge plunges into his work to save his sanity. But his first assignment is a case certain to spell disaster, personally and professionally. In Warwickshire, a popular colonel has been murdered, and the main suspect is a decorated war hero and close friend of the Prince of Wales. The case is a political minefield, and no matter what the outcome, Rutledge may not escape with his career intact. But, win or lose, the cost could be even higher: the one witness who could break the case is himself a shell shock victim, teetering on the edge of reality. And in this war ravaged man, Rutledge sees his own possible future, should he lose grip on his mind…
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Wings of Fire

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…

Search the Dark

The introspective hero of wings of Fire and A Test of Wills Edgar Award nominee return in a provocative new mystery. Inspector Ian Rutledge, haunted by memories of World War I and the harrowing presence of Hamish, a dead soldier, is ‘a superb characterization of a man whose wounds have made him a stranger i his own land.’ The New York Times Book ReviewA dead woman two missing children bring Inspector Rutledge to the lovely Dorset town of Singeton Magna, where the truth lies buried with the dead. A tormented veteran whose family died in an enemy bombing is the chief suspect. Dubious, Rutledge presses on to find the real killer. And when another body is found in the rich Dorset earth, his quest reaches into the secret lives of villagers and Londoners whose privileged positions and private passions give them every reason to thwart him. Someone is protecting a murderer. And two children are out there, somewhere, the dark…

Legacy of the Dead

In Ian Rutledge, Charles Todd has created a classic literary figure. A survivor of World War I, Rutledge is a man walking on the edge of insanity, finding both relief and more madness in his work as a Scotland Yard investigator. Now this series, praised by The New York Times Book Review for ‘challenging plot, complex characters, and subtle psychological insights wrapped in thick layers of atmosphere,’ takes Rutledge to the one place that most threatens the balance of his mind: his past. Legacy of the DeadRutledge’s superior dispatches him to Durham to question the mother of a missing young woman. The weathered remains found on a windswept Scottish mountainside may be those of Eleanor Gray, but the imperious Lady Maude Gray will have to be handled delicately. This is not the only ground that Rutledge must tread carefully. The case will more than likely lead him on to Scotland, where many of Rutledge’s ghosts rest uneasily. Scotland was the homeland of many of the young soldiers Rutledge led into battle and, for far too many of them, to their deaths. And of Corporal Hamish MacLeod, the Highlander he shot for breaking on the battlefield. It is Hamish’s voice, caustic and accusing, that haunts his waking moments and as*sesses his every action. Rutledge knows that in the Scottish countryside he will hear echoes of that condemning voice everywhere he turns. But he cannot know what else he will encounter as he follows the trail of Eleanor Gray’s last movements. In the village of Duncarrick he will find a young mother who has been destroyed by a malicious campaign of gossip carried by anonymous letters. Now Fiona MacDonald stands accused of murdering the woman on that rugged mountain and of taking the child of her victim to raise as her own. Rutledge owes this woman a terrible debt, driving him on a harrowing journey to find the truth leading him back through the fires of his past, and into secrets that still have the power to kill. Legacy of the Dead is a breathtaking, riveting mystery set in a fascinating landscape at the wary dawn of a new age. In Scotland, Charles Todd captures a land where war and bloodshed are part of the earth, the walls, and living memory. And where a man like Ian Rutledge is all too much at home.

Watchers of Time

In his latest novel, bestselling author Charles Todd brings his classic mystery series to a new level of intensity and intrigue. The year is 1919, and Ian Rutledge is a fragile yet courageous former soldier searching for his place in a postwar world. Now a Scotland Yard investigator, Rutledge is called upon to probe a small town murder and discovers that it may be connected to one of the greatest disasters of all time…
. Watchers of TimeIn Osterley, a marshy Norfolk backwater, a man lies dying on a rainy autumn night. While natural causes will surely claim Herbert Baker’s life in a matter of hours, his last request baffles his family and friends. Baker, a devout Anglican, inexplicably demands to see the town s Catholic priest for a last confession. The old man dies without knowing that the very priest who gave him comfort will follow him to the grave just a few weeks later the victim of an appalling murder. The local police are convinced the evidence points to an interrupted robbery, and have named a suspect, Matthew Walsh. But the dead priest s bishop insists that Scotland Yard oversee the investigation. A simple task for Rutledge, a man not yet well enough to return to full duty. The Inspector draws on years of experience and a war honed intuition as he finds himself uncovering secrets that the local authorities would prefer not to see explored. Surely, they reason, it is better to charge an outsider Matthew Walsh with murder than to learn that someone in this tightly knit community would commit such a horrendous crime. And yet there are those, Rutledge soon discovers, who held grudges against the priest that had little to do with God or the Church. No one in Osterley is aware that Rutledge hears voices or, rather, one haunting voice: that of a soldier he was forced to execute during the War. It is with the voice of Hamish MacLeod, by turns second guessing and taunting him, that Rutledge begins a journey toward the devastating truth that will unlock the secrets of Osterley and pare away its layers of deception. And in piecing together a different story, Rutledge encounters a chain of events that stretches from these brooding marshes to one of the greatest sea disasters in history the sinking of the Titanic. Who is the mysterious woman who may have boarded that ship…
and who is the secretive woman who survived it? Rutledge comes to believe that he alone can stop a killer from striking again. Deftly capturing the anguish of a man haunted by his tragic past, Watchers of Time delves beneath a cast of unforgettable characters to examine a mystery even greater than murder: the mystery of what is right and what is wrong after the world has committed the sin of war. From the Hardcover edition.

A Fearsome Doubt

Bestselling author Charles Todd has earned a special place among mystery’s elite writers with his acclaimed series featuring Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, a former soldier seeking to lay to rest the demons of his past in the aftermath of World War I. But that past bleeds into the present in a complex murder case that calls into question his own honor…
and the crimes committed in the name of God, country, and righteous vengeance.A Fearsome DoubtIn 1912 Ian Rutledge watched as a man was condemned to hang for the murders of elderly women. Rutledge helped gather the evidence that sent Ben Shaw to the gallows. And when justice was done, Rutledge closed the door on the case. But Shaw was not easily forgotten. Now, seven years later, that grim trial returns in the form of Ben Shaw s widow Nell, bringing Rutledge evidence she is convinced will prove her husband s innocence. It s a belief fraught with peril, threatening both Rutledge s professional stature and his faith in his judgment. But there is a darker reason for Rutledge s reluctance. Murder brings him back to Kent where, days earlier, he d glimpsed an all too familiar face beyond the leaping flames of a bonfire. Soon an unexpected encounter revives the end of his own war, as the country prepares for a somber commemoration on the anniversary of the Armistice. To battle the unsettled past and the haunted present at the same time is an appalling mandate. And the people around him? among them the attractive widow of a friend, a remarkable woman who survived the Great Indian Mutiny; a bitter, dying barrister; and a man whose name he never knew unwittingly compete with the grieving Nell Shaw. They ll demand more than Rutledge can give, unaware that he is already carrying the burden of shell shock? and the voice of Hamish MacLeod, the soldier he was forced to execute in the war. The killer in Marling is surprisingly adept at escaping detection. And Ben Shaw s past is a tangle of unsettling secrets that may or may not be true. Rutledge must walk a tortuous line between two murderers…
one reaching out to ruin him, the other driven to destroy him. From the Hardcover edition.

A Cold Treachery

Charles Todd returns to the world of Scotland Yard’s Inspector Ian Rutledge in a series that the New York Times Book Review called harrowing psychological drama and the Washington Post Book World hailed as among the most intelligent and affecting being written these days. This time the embattled Inspector has met his match hunting a brutal killer across a frozen hell and the one witness who may have survived a crime of A Cold Treachery You ll hang for this see if you don t! That s my revenge! And you ll think about that when the rope goes around your neck and the black hood comes down . Called out by Scotland Yard into the teeth of a violent blizzard, Inspector Ian Rutledge finds himself confronted with one of the most savage murders he has ever encountered. Rutledge might have expected such unspeakable carnage on the World War I battlefields, where he d lost much of his soul and his sanity but not in an otherwise peaceful farm kitchen in remote Urskdale. Someone has murdered the Elcott family at their table without the least sign of struggle. Was the killer someone the young family knew and trusted? When the victims are tallied the local police are in for another shock: One of the Elcotts children, a boy named Josh, is missing. Now the Inspector must race to uncover a murderer and to save a child before he s silenced by the merciless elements or the even colder hands of a killer. Haunted and goaded by the soldier ghost of his own tortured war past, Rutledge will discover the tragedy of war that splintered one marriage and pulled together another. Love, jealousy, greed, revenge or was it some twisted combination of all of them? Any one could lead a man or woman to murder. What had the Elcotts done to ignite their killer s rage? With time running out, Rutledge knows all too well that such a cold blooded murderer could be hiding somewhere in the blinding snow preparing to strike again. From the Hardcover edition.

A Long Shadow

It’s New Year’s Eve, 1919. Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge has accompanied his sister to the home of mutual friends for dinner but gets a call from the office and has to leave. On the steps outside, he sees a brass cartridge casing, like countless others he’s seen during the war. But this one has an engraving in the metal. Curious, he pockets it.

Soon after, Rutledge is on the southern coast of England helping the local police capture a murderer. Work done, on a whim he drives along the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic and takes a walk out on the headland. Returning to his car, he finds another engraved cartridge casing on the driver’s seat. He’s been followed.

The cartridge casing seems to point to the war and unfinished business there. To stay alive in the face of an unknown and unseen adversary, Rutledge is pressed to the limits of his skills. He’s the prey. But who is the hunter?

A False Mirror

Unhealed scars of the Great War still torment Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, and he carries with him the presence of the soldier he was forced to execute in the midst of battle. A haunted, damaged shell of a man, he has been sent to the small coastal town of Hampton Regis to solve a violent crime and to confront his own tragic past.

An officer who served with Rutledge in the trenches of France before being sent back to England under suspicious circumstances has now been accused of savagely beating the husband of the woman he still loves. The suspect has taken the wife hostage, threatening to kill her and her maid unless Rutledge is put in charge of the investigation. Although the case painfully mirrors Rutledge’s own past and the love he lost to another man, he cannot refuse it. When the unconscious brutalized victim vanishes without a trace, it’s clear that this peaceful little town hides a vicious murderer…
and secrets powerful enough to kill for.

A Pale Horse

The Great War never relinquished its hold on Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, leaving him haunted and isolated, unable to forget. In the spring of 1920, he’s dispatched to Berkshire to find a missing man whose war work is so secret even Rutledge cannot know its true nature. Meanwhile, miles away, an unidentified body has been discovered in the ruins of a Yorkshire abbey, clothed in a monk’s robe and wearing a gas mask.

In the shadow of a great white horse cut into the chalk hillside where cottages once built to house the sick and untouchable now shelter outcasts like himself Rutledge must extract a terrible truth from those who hide from the past. For death is never quite finished with anyone, least of all the men who fought in the bloody trenches of France.

A Matter of Justice

The superb new entry in the historical series the New York Times Book Review hails as ‘outstanding’ and the Cleveland Plain Dealer calls ‘superb’ At the turn of the century, in a war taking place far from England, two soldiers chance upon an opportunity that will change their lives forever. To take advantage of it, they will be required to do the unthinkable, and then to put the past behind them. But not all memories are so short. Twenty years later, a successful London busi nessman is found savagely and bizarrely murdered in a medieval tithe barn on his estate in Somerset. Called upon to investigate, Scotland Yard inspector Ian Rutledge soon discovers that the victim was universally despised. Even the man’s wife who appears to be his wife in name only and the town’s police inspector are suspect. But who, among the many, hated him enough to kill? Rutledge tenaciously follows a well concealed trail reaching back to an act so barbarous and with consequences so devastating that even the innocent are enveloped by the murderous tide of events. As he summons all his skills to break through a wall of silence in time to stem this tide, others are eager to twist the truth for their own ends. When justice takes a malevolent turn, can Rutledge’s own career survive?

The Red Door

New York Times bestselling author Charles Todd brings back Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge in another riveting mystery set in post World War I England Lancashire, England, June 1920. In a house with a red door lies the body of a woman who has been bludgeoned to death. Rumor has it that two years earlier, she’d painted that door to welcome her husband back from the Front. Only he never came home. Meanwhile, in London, a man suffering from a mysterious illness first goes missing and then just as suddenly reappears. He is unable to explain his recovery. His family, supposedly searching for him, give conflicting accounts of where they were and why. What is the secret that nearly drove one man mad and turned his brothers and sister against one another with such unexpected savagery?Inspector Ian Rutledge, drawn into both cases and facing a wall of silence, must solve two mysteries before he can bring a ruthless killer to justice: Who was the woman who lived and died behind The Red Door? Who was the man who never came home from the Great War, for the simple reason that he might never have gone? And what have they to do with a man who cannot break the seal of his own guilt without damning those he loves most?

A Lonely Death

Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge returns to solve his most exciting and shocking case yet in this latest entry in the bestselling series hailed as ‘outstanding’ by the New York Times Book Review A breathtaking blend of psychological complexity, haunting atmosphere, compelling twists, and impressive detail, the novels in the Ian Rutledge mystery series have garnered their author widespread acclaim and numerous honors and awards. At the heart of the series is the compelling Scotland Yard detective inspector Ian Rutledge, a veteran of the Great War who understands all too well the darkness that lies within men’s souls. Now three men have been murdered in a Sussex village, and Scotland Yard has been called in. It’s a baffling case. The victims are soldiers who survived the horrors of World War I only to meet a ghastly end in the quiet English countryside two years later. Each had been garroted, with small ID discs left in their mouths. But even Scotland Yard’s presence doesn’t deter this vicious and clever killer. Shortly after Inspector Ian Rutledge arrives, a fourth soldier is found dead. With few clues to go on and the pressure building, Rutledge must gamble everything his job, his reputation, and even his life to find answers.

The Confession

One of the best historical series being written today. Washington Post Todd once and for all establishes the shell shocked Rutledge as the genre’s most complex and fascinating detective. Entertainment Weekly The Confession is historical crime fiction at its finest, continuing Charles Todd s New York Times bestselling mystery series featuring severely damaged British World War I veteran, and yet still astonishingly efficient Scotland Yard inspector, Ian Rutledge. Todd s troubled investigator wrestles with a startling and dangerous case that reaches far into the past when a false confession from a man who is not who he claims to be leads to a brutal murder. The Confession is a must read for every fan of Elizabeth George, Martha Grimes, P.D. James, Ruth Rendell, and Jacqueline Winspear, as post war London s best detective finds himself ensnared in a dark and deadly investigation that unearths shocking small town secrets dating back more than a century.

A Duty to the Dead

The daughter of a distinguished soldier, Bess Crawford follows in his footsteps and signs up to go overseas as a nurse during the Great War, helping to deal with the many wounded. There, serving on a hospital ship, she makes a promise to a dying young lieutenant to take a message to his brother, Jonathan Graham: ‘Tell Jonathan that I lied. I did it for Mother’s sake. But it has to be set right.’ Later, when her ship is sunk by a mine and she s sidelined by a broken arm, Bess returns home to England, determined to fulfill her promise. It s not so easy, however. She travels to the village in Kent where the Grahams live and pas*ses on to Jonathan his brother s plea. Oddly, neither Jonathan, his mother, nor his younger brother admit to knowing what the message means. Then Bess learns that there s another brother, incarcerated in a lunatic asylum since the age of 14 when he was accused of brutally murdering a housemaid. Bess rightly guesses that the dying soldier s last words had something to do with the fourth brother. Because the family seems unwilling to do anything, she decides that she will investigate. It s her own duty to the dead.

An Impartial Witness

World War I nurse Bess Crawford, introduced in A Duty to the Dead, returns in an exciting new mystery in which a murder draws her inexorably into the sights of a cunning killer It is the early summer of 1917. Bess Crawford has returned to England from the trenches of France with a convoy of severely wounded men. One of her patients is a young pilot who has been burned beyond recognition, and who clings to life and the photo of his wife that is pinned to his tunic. While passing through a London train station, Bess notices a woman bidding an emotional farewell to an officer, her grief heart wrenching. And then Bess realizes that she seems familiar. In fact, she’s the woman in the pilot’s photo, but the man she is seeing off is not her husband. Back on duty in France, Bess discovers a newspaper with a drawing of the woman’s face on the front page. Accompanying the drawing is a plea from Scotland Yard seeking information from anyone who has seen her. For it appears that the woman was murdered on the very day Bess encountered her at the station. Granted leave to speak with Scotland Yard, Bess becomes entangled in the case. Though an arrest is made, she must delve into the depths of her very soul to decide if the police will hang an innocent man or a vicious killer. Exposing the truth is dangerous and will put her own life on the line.

A Hanging at Dawn

Letters to Marc About Jesus is a beautiful collection of Henri Nouwen’s very intimate and very enlightening writings to Marc, his nineteen year old nephew, who struggles to find his true path in a world of confusion and apathy. Written with Nouwen’s characteristic grace and wisdom, these letters bear witness to his conviction that anyone can find lasting spiritual fulfillment if they simply take the time to maintain a daily awareness of Jesus in every aspect of life. Powerful and profound, Letters to Marc About Jesus is Nouwen at his best teacher, guide, and mentor and will provide the direction and inspiration necessary forany believer to change his or her life.

The Murder Stone

Charles Todd’s critically acclaimed novels featuring Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge have been hailed by The Washington Post Book World as one of the best historical series being written today. The New York Times Book Review calls Todd s mysteries meticulously wrought…
harrowing psychological drama. Now he stakes out new territory in this mesmerizing stand alone novel of one woman s dark journey through family obsession, wartime secrets, and a chilling legacy. The Murder StoneThe Great War is still raging in the autumn of 1916, when Francesca Hatton s beloved grandfather dies on the family estate in England s isolated Exe Valley. Grieving for the man who raised her, Francesca is stunned to find an unsigned letter among his effects, cursing the Hattons and their descendants. Now a stranger has shown up on her doorstep, accusing her grandfather of being a murderer. Ex soldier Richard Leighton blames Francis Hatton for the death of his mother, who vanished nearly a quarter of a century earlier. Her body was never found, only a shawl stained with her blood. And Leighton is not the only one with a claim on Francesca s grandfather. On the day of his funeral, unexpected visitors arrive with the mourners, and Francesca is besieged by charges of Hatton s vicious dealings. Yet there is also a shy young woman who praises his secret generosity. At the center of the intrigue is an unusual white stone that lies hidden in a secluded garden where Francesca once played with her five male cousins, all of them dead now on the battlefields of France. According to the terms of Hatton s will, The Murder Stone must be dug up and transported to Scotland, where it is to be buried forever. But before Francesca can begin the journey, a series of ominous accidents occur, culminating in the discovery of a bleeding body on The Murder Stone itself. Was Hatton the loving, caring protector his granddaughter always believed him to be? Or a vindictive, secretive man who cultivated dangerous enemies? Francesca sets out in pursuit of the truth and into the sights of someone determined to exact a revenge long overdue. From the Hardcover edition.

Mystery Writers of America Presents Death Do Us Part: New Stories About Love, Lust, and Murder

From the Civil War–era south to 1950s New York to the present day’s gritty cities and seemingly innocuous suburbs, the eighteen stories in this anthology edited by the award winning mystery writer Harlan Coben chart the complications always surprising, sometimes deadly that arise between lovers, dear friends, and even complete strangers coming together for a single, shocking encounter. In Lee Child’s ‘Safe Enough,’ a blue collar city boy takes up with a wealthy suburban wife, with dire consequences. In Harlan Coben’s ‘Entrapped,’ a woman’s husband disappears and is replaced by a handsome impostor. In Laura Lippman’s ‘One True Love,’ a high end prostitute seeks a radical solution to a public relations problem. And in P. J. Parrish’s ‘One Shot,’ a man returns to his childhood home to learn the truth about a long ago tragedy. Other contributors of original stories include Ridley Pearson, R. L. Stine, Jim Fusilli, Jeff Abbott, Charles Todd, and Tom Savage.

A Study in Sherlock

BESTSELLING AUTHORS GO HOLMES IN AN IRRESISTIBLE NEW COLLECTION edited by award winning Sherlockians Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger Neil Gaiman. Laura Lippman. Lee Child. These are just three of eighteen superstar authors who provide fascinating, thrilling, and utterly original perspectives on Sherlock Holmes in this one of a kind book. These modern masters place the sleuth in suspenseful new situations, create characters who solve Holmesian mysteries, contemplate Holmes in his later years, fill gaps in the Sherlock Holmes Canon, and reveal their own personal obsessions with the Great Detective. Thomas Perry, for example, has Dr. Watson tell his tale, in a virtuoso work of alternate history that finds President McKinley approaching the sleuth with a disturbing request; Lee Child sends an FBI agent to investigate a crime near today’s Baker Street only to get a twenty first century shock; Jacqueline Winspear spins a story of a plucky boy inspired by the detective to make his own deductions; and graphic artist Colin Cotterill portrays his struggle to complete this assignment in his hilarious The Mysterious Case of the Unwritten Short Story. In perfect tribute comes this delicious collection of twisty, clever, and enthralling studies of a timeless icon. Featuring stories from Alan BradleyTony BroadbentJan BurkeLionel ChetwyndLee ChildColin Cotterill Neil GaimanLaura LippmanGayle Lynds & John SheldonPhillip & Jerry MargolinMargaret MaronThomas PerryS. J. RozanDana StabenowCharles ToddJacqueline Winspear print version only