Library's review
Readers of the series will instantly understand from that summary the potential this case has to be an emotional land mine for Rutledge: He came back from fighting in France with a severe case of shell shock and the voice of his dead sergeant, Hamish, constantly in his head. How will be cope with investigating a murder apparently committed by a ghost against an invisible victim?
This 24th entry in the series is excellent, skillfully weaving the actual murder investigation into an examination of WWI's lingering effects on the home front and the people left to pick up the pieces in a world devoid of so many of their loved ones. There's also a subplot involving a woman Rutledge carries an unacknowledged torch for, which hints that there may be some further development on that front in future books.
About those future books: The preface to this one is an homage from one-half of the writing team that makes up the Charles Todd pseudonym, to his mother, who was the other half and has recently died. The ending of the book is not a cliffhanger that would all but assure another entry, but it's also not a neat tidying up of all the dangling plot lines, either. So I live in hope that come next February, I'll be happily spending time again with Inspector Rutledge for the 25th time.
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Description
Fiction. Mystery. Thriller. Historical Fiction. HTML: In this newest installment of the acclaimed New York Times bestselling series, Scotland Yard's Ian Rutledge is faced with his most perplexing case yet: a murder with no body, and a killer who can only be a ghost. Spring, 1921. Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Rutledge to the sea-battered village of Walmer on the coast of Essex, where amongst the salt flats and a military airfield lies Benton Abbey, a grand manor with a storied past. The lady of the house may prove his most bewildering witness yet. She claims she saw a violent murder�??but there is no body, no blood. She also insists she recognized the killer: Captain Nelson. Only it could not have been Nelson because he died during the war. Everyone in the village believes that Lady Benton's losses have turned her mind�??she is, after all, a grieving widow and mother�??but the woman Rutledge interviews is rational and self-possessed. And then there is Captain Nelson: what really happened to him in the war? The more Rutledge delves into this baffling case, the more suspicious tragedies he uncovers. The Abbey and the airfield hold their secrets tightly. Until Rutledge arrives, and a new trail of death follow… (more)