Get ready for a fantastic and intriguing collection of murder mystery novels by Charles Todd set against the grand backdrop of the First Great War – WWI and the sweeping societal upheavals of post-war England.
The first collection is a comprehensive series chronicling the cases of Inspector Ian Rutledge. A veteran of the European campaigns, Rutledge now attempts to pick up the pieces of his Scotland Yard career, but he must keep his greatest burden a secret. Suffering from shell shock, he lives with the constant, cynical, taunting voice of Hamish MacLeod, a young Scots soldier he was forced to execute on the battlefield for refusing an order.
The second collection follows Bess Crawford, a nurse serving in France during World War I. In addition to attending to the wounded, she is also an amateur sleuth with a knack for finding herself in the middle of a murder investigation for which she ultimately becomes the one person who can find the true answers. Bess Crawford is not the usual upper-middle-class British gentlewoman. Independent-minded, she grew up in India where she learned the importance of responsibility, honor, and duty from her officer father.
In addition to Ian Rutledge and Bess Crawford series, Charles Todd has authored several standalone novels and short stories that also take place in England both before and during World War I. The story lines are as rich as they are absorbing and could be described as delivering an impressionistic feel between Downton Abbey and the British-set mysteries of Elizabeth George.