Although a detective story this series is really about a WW1 veteran adjusting to life while suffering from PTSD (personified by the voice of Hamish in his head).

Detective Inspector Ian Rutledge is sent to a small village to investigate an attack on the local police constable with a bow and arrow. But there are several other issues that keep cropping up, relating to old crimes. Meanwhile Rutledge is being stalked by someone leaving shell casings where he will find them.

After a lot of investigation, self doubt and rubbing people up the wrong way events come to a head and more blood is spilt.

This tale reaches back into the past. Unsettling and unmoored. The end is right,y accounted and yet Inever felt more sorry for Rutledge. A lonely life with only a ghost to keep him company.

Another good old-fashioned English detective series with Inspector Ian Rutledge did not disappoint. While he continues to battle his own inner demons from the battlefields of World War I, he is assigned to leave London's Scotland Yard and investigate an attack made on an officer in a small village. As he searches for answers to this crime, he finds himself being a target himself. This book has murders from years ago, a mysterious and haunted woods, fascinating characters, and the setting of 1920's English villages. This series is always a pleasure to read.

The eighth Rutledge Mystery gives us at least three for the price of one. Ian has been finding machine gun casings left where he will find them including on top of his bed. Then someone takes a shot at his motorcar smashing the windshield and barely missing Ian.

An officer is found shot with a bow in a woods with an evil reputation and when Ian is sent to investigate the officer claims to have no memory of the event or how he got there. But Ian is invited to use his home while in town.

The officer’s bedroom window overlooks the bedroom opposite occupied by a girl raised by her grandmother who mysteriously disappeared three years ago. In a town where gossip is the norm nobody wants to talk to Ian, the Innkeeper claims not to have a room for Ian in an empty Inn, and the local barkeep all but throws him out of the local pub.

And why did a London cop complete with commendations move to the sticks. As usual Bowels expects a quick resolution to the case.

Taunted that the Yard was expected to find a quick solution Rutledge replies:

“The Yard works with information. Apparently in Dudlington there’s none to be had.”

Inspector Rutledge once again is on a case--this time in a small village called Dudlington in Northamptonshire, where a constable has been struck in the back by an arrow. He is not dead, but is in hospital.

The constable had previously been in London and worked for Rutledges's nemesis Bowles. The web of clues and happenings grows as Rutledge investigates the attempted murder.

Complicated tale with many characters and along the way, Rutledge is not only still haunted daily by Hamish but a living ex-soldier also seems to have a grudge against him and tries to cause the Inspector harm in a variety of ways.

Multiple and intense plots coming to resolution in a shocking climax.

"He thought sometimes, in the dark corners of his mind, that the dead were the lucky ones. They hadn't been disillusioned."

The introduction of Meredith Channing, who proved helpful for some of this book's reveals, is an intriguing development for Inspector Rutledge's life. It will be interesting to see if she continues in the next book.

This one I rather liked. I thought it was well told. Rutledge is isolated, but not entirely. I liked the claustrophobia of the small village, and the otherworldliness of Firth Wood. I thought Frances (his sister) was well-used here. I liked how some of the sub-plots were actually resolved in novel, and not just dropped. And I quite liked Mrs. Channing as potential friend, and an incredibly intuitive observer. She was an interesting character.

Also, I gathered that it was very possible to skip book 7, once you got past the first couple of chapters.

A sad tale of lonely people held together by secrets and pain -- war and disillusionment -- and it all comes together in a small town where the constable has been shot with a bow and arrow in a haunted forest, some say looking for the grave of a young woman who disappeared three years before. Its let to Inspector Ian Rutledge to resolve the mystery of why the constable was shot, what happened to the young woman and why someone has been leaving empty rifle cartridges for him. Rutledge fears not only what he doesn't know but what he might allow to get out and so he is also in pain and suffering for what might have been and what the future might hold. A solid bit of story from two masters. And a character that will hold your attention and your thoughts long after the final page.

Another delightful read by the mother and son team known as Charles Todd. A constable in Dudlington, a former Scotland Yard Inspector in London who was scandalously involved in an arson where a man was killed, was shot in the back in Dudlington’s Firth of Wood by an assailant armed with a bow and error. Inspector Rutledge is assigned the case. The case is much wider and deeper and therefore more complex and more treacherous than originally thought.

As in the other books in this series, the writing is clean and pages turn, and we learn much about post WWI in England, especially rural areas. 4 stars, recommended reading.

n  n    Stalked!n  n
Rutledge is being stalked by a killer. He leaves a calling card: an empty .303 caliber Maxim Machine Gun cartridge. Rutledge finds the first one when leaving a party at a friend's house. Later, another one appears on his bed at the place where he is staying. Somebody shoots out the windshield of his car while he is driving it down the road, and a small boy who witnesses the shooting says that the shooter was a "dead soldier." What? Dead? How can that be?

All is eventually revealed, and this is another great effort by the authors. I liked this book and recommend it highly.

This installment of Ian Rutledge's career is a bit different, including a haunted wood, a reticent village population, murderous family secrets, and a vengeful war veteran. Rutledge barely finishes with one case before he is sent off to investigate another one. They are all much more complicated than they first appear. He investigates with his superior in London breathing down his neck demanding results.
The addition of the stalker wasn't crucial to the story, in my opinion. It feels tacked on to an otherwise compelling page turner.

The best of the series

Without a doubt this is my favorite Inspector Rutledge book. And the most creepy! Well crafted story covering murders that happened over almost 40 yrs, and leaving one last character mysterious to the end.