-
A Fearsome Doubt
- Narrated by: Samuel Gillies
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
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Publisher's summary
In 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.
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- By Ms P Kelly on 01-14-19
By: Kate Saunders
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The Fire Rose
- By: Mercedes Lackey
- Narrated by: Kate Black-Regan
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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Accepting employment as a governess after hard times hit her family, medieval scholar Rosalind Hawkins is surprised when she learns that her mysterious employer has no children and only wants her to read to him through a speaking tube.
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Great story, poorly presented
- By Che on 02-26-10
By: Mercedes Lackey
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Maisie Dobbs
- Maisie Dobbs, Book 1
- By: Jacqueline Winspear
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Maisie Dobbs got her start as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, soon became her patron, taking the remarkably bright youngster under her wing. Lady Rowan’s friend, Maurice Blanche, often retained as an investigator by the European elite, recognized Maisie’s intuitive gifts. The outbreak of war changed everything. Ten years after the Armistice, in the spring of 1929, Maisie sets out on her own as a private investigator, one who has learned that coincidences are meaningful, and truth elusive.
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All ‘round tip top
- By nancy M on 01-10-23
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A Great Deliverance
- Inspector Lynley, Book 1
- By: Elizabeth George
- Narrated by: Donada Peters
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Into Keldale's pastoral web of old houses and older secrets comes Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton. Along with the redoubtable Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, Lynley has been sent to solve a savage murder that has stunned the peaceful countryside. For fat, unlovely Roberta Teys has been found in her best dress, an ax in her lap, seated in the old stone barn beside her father's headless corpse. Her first and last words were "I did it. And I'm not sorry".
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good debut novel
- By Stevon on 11-11-19
By: Elizabeth George
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A Gentleman's Murder
- By: Christopher Huang
- Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The year is 1924. Only a few years removed from the trenches of Flanders, Lieutenant Eric Peterkin has just been granted membership in the most prestigious soldiers-only club in London: the Britannia. But when a gentleman's wager ends with a member stabbed to death, the victim's last words echo in the lieutenant's head: that he would "Soon right a great wrong from the past". Eric is certain one of his fellow members is the murderer. But who?
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Ignore the indiscriminate ire. It’s great!
- By Denise Dalrymple on 05-15-20
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Season of Darkness
- By: Maureen Jennings
- Narrated by: Tom Craig
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Following the disastrous retreat of the British army from Dunkirk in 1940, England is plunged into a state of fear. The threat of a German invasion is real, and many German Nationals are interned in camps across the country. One such camp is on the ancient moor land of Prees Heath, near the small town of Whitchurch in Shropshire, where Tom Tyler is the sole detective inspector. Young women from all walks of life have joined the Land Army, to help desperate farmers keep the country fed. Then one turns up dead.
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much better than average historical detective
- By connie on 09-30-12
By: Maureen Jennings
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A Beautiful Blue Death
- Charles Lenox Mysteries Series #1
- By: Charles Finch
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Charles Lenox, Victorian gentleman and armchair explorer, likes nothing more than to relax in his private study with a cup of tea, a roaring fire and a good book. But when his lifelong friend Lady Jane asks for his help, Lenox cannot resist the chance to unravel a mystery. Prudence Smith, one of Jane's former servants, is dead of an apparent suicide. But Lenox suspects something far more sinister: murder, by a rare and deadly poison.
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I like cozy
- By Sheryl on 05-21-12
By: Charles Finch
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Pietr the Latvian
- Inspector Maigret, Book 1
- By: Georges Simenon, David Bellos - translator
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The first audiobook which appeared in Georges Simenon's famous Maigret series, in a gripping new translation by David Bellos.Inevitably Maigret was a hostile presence in the Majestic. He constituted a kind of foreign body that the hotel's atmosphere could not assimilate. Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn't have a moustache and he didn't wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands. But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man.
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Long live Maigret
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-19-14
By: Georges Simenon, and others
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Except the Dying
- A Murdoch Mystery, Book 1
- By: Maureen Jennings
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In the cold Toronto winter of 1895, the naked body of a servant girl is found frozen in a deserted laneway. The young victim was pregnant when she died. Detective William Murdoch soon discovers that many of those connected with the girl's life have secrets to hide. Was her death on attempt to cover up a scandal in one of the city's influential families?
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If you like the show - don't buy
- By Sarah on 06-09-16
By: Maureen Jennings
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Fallen Into the Pit
- An Inspector Felse Mystery
- By: Ellis Peters
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Helmut Schauffler, a young Nazi working in the small English village of Comerford, sets out to play upon the post-war sensibilities and fears by terrorizing his new neighbors.
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A peek into an earlier time.
- By ShySusan on 11-28-11
By: Ellis Peters
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And Only to Deceive
- Lady Emily, Book 1
- By: Tasha Alexander
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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For Emily, accepting the proposal of Philip, the viscount Ashton, was an easy way to escape her overbearing mother, who was set on a grand society match. So when Emily's dashing husband died on safari soon after their wedding, she felt little grief. After all, she barely knew him. Now, nearly two years later, she discovers that Philip was a far different man from the one she had married so cavalierly.
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Tiresome
- By nkevinsc on 03-05-15
By: Tasha Alexander
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Difficult to follow the narrator
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Terrific period mystery
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Good back story for the series
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The Beekeeper's Apprentice, or On the Segregation of the Queen
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A fabulous new take on Sherlock Holmes
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Following a humiliating fourth season in London, Lady Elizabeth Fraser is on her way back to her ancestral country estate when her train careens off the rails and bursts into flames. Though she is injured, she manages to drag herself and her unconscious mother out of the wreckage, and amid the chaos that ensues, a brilliant young railway surgeon saves her mother's life. Elizabeth feels an immediate connection with Paul Wilcox - though society would never deem a medical man eligible for the daughter of an earl.
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Great Story, Annoying Narration
- By Wren on 06-08-17
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What Angels Fear
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It's 1811, and the threat of revolution haunts the upper classes of King George III's England. Then a beautiful young woman is found savagely murdered on the altar steps of an ancient church near Westminster Abbey. A dueling pistol found at the scene and the damning testimony of a witness both point to one man - Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, a brilliant young nobleman shattered by his experience in the Napoleonic Wars.
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An Addictive Series
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Ian Rutledge returns to his career at Scotland Yard after years fighting in the First World War. Unknown to his colleagues he is still suffering from shell shock, and is burdened with the guilt of having had executed a young soldier on the battlefield for refusing to fight. A jealous colleague has learned of his secret and has managed to have Rutledge assigned to a difficult case which could spell disaster for Rutledge whatever the outcome. A retired officer has been murdered, and Rutledge goes to investigate.
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Difficult to follow the narrator
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The daughter of a distinguished soldier, Bess Crawford follows in his patriotic footsteps, volunteering to serve her country as a nurse during the Great War. In 1916 she promises Lieutenant Arthur Graham that she will carry his dying request to a brother. When Bess arrives at the Graham house in Kent, Jonathan Graham listens to his brother's last wishes with surprising indifference.
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Terrific period mystery
- By Anne on 12-04-10
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Good back story for the series
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In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees in Sussex when a young woman literally stumbles onto him on the Sussex Downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern, twentieth-century woman proves a deft protégée and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective.
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A fabulous new take on Sherlock Holmes
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A Lady in the Smoke
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Following a humiliating fourth season in London, Lady Elizabeth Fraser is on her way back to her ancestral country estate when her train careens off the rails and bursts into flames. Though she is injured, she manages to drag herself and her unconscious mother out of the wreckage, and amid the chaos that ensues, a brilliant young railway surgeon saves her mother's life. Elizabeth feels an immediate connection with Paul Wilcox - though society would never deem a medical man eligible for the daughter of an earl.
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Great Story, Annoying Narration
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It's 1811, and the threat of revolution haunts the upper classes of King George III's England. Then a beautiful young woman is found savagely murdered on the altar steps of an ancient church near Westminster Abbey. A dueling pistol found at the scene and the damning testimony of a witness both point to one man - Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, a brilliant young nobleman shattered by his experience in the Napoleonic Wars.
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Satisfying
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His name, they tell him, is William Monk, and he is a London police detective. But the accident that felled him has left him with only half a life; his memory and his entire past have vanished. As he tries to hide the truth, Monk returns to work and is assigned to investigate the brutal murder of a Crimean War hero and man about town. Which makes Monk’s efforts doubly difficult, since he’s forgotten his professional skills along with everything else.
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promising start to the series
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It's 1910, and Daniel Pitt is a reluctant lawyer who would prefer to follow in the footsteps of his detective father. When the biographer Russell Graves, who Daniel is helping defend, is sentenced to execution for the murder of his wife, Daniel's Pitt-family investigative instincts kick in, and he sets out to find the real killer. With only 21 days before Graves is to be executed, Daniel learns that Graves is writing a biography of Victor Narraway, the former head of Special Branch and a close friend of the Pitts. And the stories don't shed a positive light. Is it possible someone is framing Graves to keep him from writing the biography-maybe even someone Daniel knows in Special Branch? The only answer, it seems, lies in the dead woman's corpse.
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The Pitt Novels
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Songbird
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Detective Sergeant Chris Waters got the call at 05.29 that July morning. This is it, said DCI Reeve, you'll be first there, it's all yours, you're the crime scene manager. Suddenly, after months of waiting and wondering, Waters finds himself in at the deep end, and alone at the scene of a puzzling murder. As the investigation proceeds, the detectives at Kings Lake Central find themselves visiting familiar places and talking to some familiar faces, while old enmities reappear in the incident room. Before this is over, Chris Waters will need to make a career-changing decision.
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Loved it...
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The Murder Stone
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The Great War is still raging when Francesca Hatton’s adored grandfather dies on his estate in England’s isolated Exe Valley. She is his sole heir, for her five cousins are dead now on the battlefields of France. Among his effects, Francesca is stunned to find a letter cursing the Hattons. And at the funeral, a stranger publicly accuses Hatton of murder. Who was her grandfather? The kind man who raised her - or a secretive killer? For in the back garden where she and her cousins once played, there is a white stone they always called the Murder Stone
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Unfaithful Narrator?
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Lethal Defense
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Attorney Nate Shepherd left a big firm to go out on his own. He sees nothing but opportunity when an out-of-town lawyer wants to hire him as local counsel on a high-profile murder case. Though his family worries that the case hits too close to home, Nate joins the defense team. When circumstances force him to take on a bigger role, Nate ignores his family’s fears and throws himself into his client’s defense.
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Outstanding legal thriller
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What listeners say about A Fearsome Doubt
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Deanna
- 08-22-24
Not as good as others
I found this installment to be slow and the story uninteresting. There were more characters I disliked than liked and it is hard to believe only a year has passed since the war when you considere all that Rutledge has been through since he returned home. I think the timeline was a strategic mistake on author's part. Rutledge did not continue to develop and for the first time I found Hamish annoying and I do think it is because Rutledge doesn't seem to be coming to terms with his situation. I was not engaged with the story and didn't care about the outcome. The motive still made no sense to me and as for the past coming back - useless waste of time. I will continue to read series because I like, but would never reread this one.
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- Carolyn E. Jaques
- 08-09-20
tricky
A few atheists and turns. and more delving into the inspectors haunted past fro. the war.
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- big daddy
- 07-13-21
Best yet?
I say that because I thought it before. Waiting for the inevitable in this, I, now, am not as perplexed at the blunt endings, but it would be nice to have at least some loose ends tidied up in the next.
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2 people found this helpful
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- debbie R
- 06-16-23
Great story
Loved this one ! Great story ! Ending was a surprise! I would recommend this book to anyone
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kathi
- 08-14-14
Outstanding in every way!
I've read all the Ian Rutledge and the Bess Crawford series (by Charles Tood, mother/son team). Just finished a Bess Crawford book, so was pleased to find this Rutledge one just released.
Rutledge is a Scotland Yard detective, struggling to rebuild his life after the Great War, from which he was sent home wounded in body and soul. It's important to understand that as a result of shell shock and events that have left him emotionally depleted as a result of the war, he carries with him an inner reminder of a moral dilemma he was forced to face. He had to issue the command to execute a soldier who refused (also on moral grounds) to lead his troops into certain death. Rutledge now hears the voice of Hamish MacBeth wherever he goes, as a constant reminder of the unthinkable choices and decisions he had been forced to make. The voice of Hamish can be wise or tormenting, but it is ever present.
In this story, Rutledge is confronted with new evidence, strongly suggesting that a man he helped bring to the gallows some years ago might have been innocent. At the same time, he is sent away to investigate the murders of men who have returned from the war seriously wounded. He must discover who is doing this, even while trying to heal his own soul from the war, and come to terms with the possibility that he not only had to have a good and decent man executed in wartime, but might have contributed to the death of an innocent man through the judicial system before the war.
There is lightweight entertainment, then there is writing that moves to deeper levels. All of this series, but especially the earlier episodes, force the reader to examine deeper moral issues, and especially this book. Yes, this is a good police procedural, and the writing is superb as they create this conflicted, lonely man who struggles with his war past while taking on his duties at Scotland Yard.
But Chales Todd here pushes the reader (listener) to examine what it means to kill. There are the issues of criminals who murder for personal reasons. But this is contrasted with legal killing--the judicial system, where people might be wrongly executed, and war, where atrocities occur that exceed the mind's ability to handle.
This book is a simple book at one level--Scotland Yard doing their job. At a different level, this writing brings us into the time just after WWI in England, providing descriptive details that evoke the atmosphere of a country that made enormous sacrifices and was almost brought to it's knees, as it tries to regain life and strength to go on. The book does an excellent job of bringing to the reader the moral dilemmas of killing, murder, legal execution or war, through Rutledge's eyes as he struggles to make sense of the two cases he has been presented with.
This is a good book, and one where the writing flows well, and has very good narration by Samuel Gillies. I could never call this "light" reading, even though it is still remains a police procedural. The Bess Crawford series, while excellent and also always thought provoking, is lighter in presentation than the Rutledge series. I have read them all, and I find that they stay with me because these earlier books, especially, leave quite a lot to ponder. They are all among my very favorite series books. Highly recommend!
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12 people found this helpful
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- Lori Dykes
- 10-26-23
Excellent
Really great with old cases coming back into play and old war memories coming back to haunt. A lot of twist and turns and of course murders to solve!
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- Debbie
- 03-18-22
Seeds of Doubt and a Search for the Truth
The widow of a man who went to his death because of testimony given by Inspector Rutledge some years earlier brings what she believes to be new evidence. Is it indeed new evidence? Or the widow's hope to clear her husband's name? This well thought out mystery kept me pondering the entire time. Rutledge, always haunted by the ghost of Hamish MacLeod, executed in the Great War for his failure to follow orders, is diligent and seeks to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, the widow of Rutledge's best friend, also killed in the war, brings another dilemma to Rutledge. I have to say that I like and respect Ian Rutledge more and more with every book. He's honest, hard working, and doggedly seeks the truth, no matter the rank or class. This is an excellent addition to the series.
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1 person found this helpful
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- AMFields
- 06-11-17
Complex and Engaging Mystery
The authors have brought Inspector Rutledge to life through his military service, the demons he lives with from the Battle of the Somme and the importance of work in healing himself. This is an engaging and complex mystery with a sense of real life tragedy. I liked this book quite a lot.
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- consuelo
- 11-25-14
Does Ian Rutledge Ever Get a Grip?
Would you try another book from Charles Todd and/or Samuel Gillies?
I've listened to several, and after this one I'm done. Ian Rutledge is an emotional mess, not particularly brilliant as a detective, and the relentless misery he carries around with him is getting old. I get that he's suffering from shell shock and I don't want to seem heartless in my assessment of the character, but there's simply no change in him, from book to book. He isn't a satisfying character.
Would you ever listen to anything by Charles Todd again?
Probably not. In addition to my irritation with the Ian Rutledge character, I'm annoyed at the number of loose ends at the finish of each book. Things do not wrap up, and while that might seem like a creative approach, it's not what I look for in mysteries.
Have you listened to any of Samuel Gillies’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
He's wonderful. I would listen to him reading the phone book. I hope to hear more of his performances.He is a true professional.
If this book were a movie would you go see it?
Not as written, no.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Linda
- 03-13-21
I can't keep dealing with the endings
Really, there are so many things that I have enjoyed about the books ... I have actually listened to 6 in a row ... but I just can not stand the cliff-hanger endings. No, that isn't right ... not exactly cliff-hanger, it is just that the books aren't finished ... it is as if the last two chapters are missing. I kept thinking that the next book, or the next one, will answer the questions ... what about Scotland? What about the unopened letters? What happen to the German? My level of frustration has overcome my desire to keep going to see if any of these, or many other, questions have answers. If this style of writing does not bother you then you will most likely enjoy this and the rest of the series. I was moved learning about France and WW I, I was not bothered (as some others were) about his very slow road to recovery from the trauma of war. And I found myself worried about what would happen to Hamish when recovery did finally come. But none of that was enough to put myself through the worry that I would be left stranded, yet again. I just could not do it.
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