Legacy Of The Dead (Inspector Ian Rutledge, #4) by Charles Todd
Format: ebook
Source: borrowed from library
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical mystery, mystery
Series: Inspector Ian Rutledge #4
Pages: 386
Published by Bantam on May 29, 2000
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

The weathered remains found on a Scottish mountainside may be those of Eleanor Gray, but the imperious Lady Maude Gray, Eleanor's mother, will have to be handled delicately. This is not the only ground that Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard must tread carefully, for the case will soon lead him to Scotland, where many of Rutledge's ghosts rest uneasily. But it is an unexpected encounter that will hold the most peril.

For in Scotland Rutledge will find that the young mother accused of killing Eleanor Gray is a woman to whom he owes a terrible debt. And his harrowing journey to find the truth will lead him back through the fires of his past, into secrets that still have the power to kill.

My Review:

In the immediate aftermath of World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic, it seems as if everyone left in Britain carries one or more legacies from the dead they left behind – or are responsible for. Or, in Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge’s case, both.

It’s a strange case indeed that brings Rutledge across the border into the Scottish lowlands. A case that is made all the more complex – and certainly stranger – by Rutledge’s involvement in it.

Because he’s coming at the case from two different angles, never expecting that a third aspect is waiting for him on arrival.

First, there’s the case of Lady Maude Grey, a rich, angry and influential dowager who refuses to admit that her adult daughter has been missing since 1916, and has most likely been dead for the three years since. A body has been discovered near Duncarrick, across the Scottish border, that might be that of her missing daughter.

Whether that body belongs to Eleanor Gray or not, the body that was found belongs to a woman whose death must be investigated, and the local constabulary isn’t quite up for that job – no matter how much they believe they’ve already found the murderer.

Everyone in the village seems to be certain that the new innkeeper, Fiona MacDonald, MUST be the murderer. They’ve all received anonymous notes that she is a wanton whore, that she was never married in spite of styling herself as war widow Mrs. Fiona MacLeod, and that the child she claimed as her own is not hers after all. Even though her official trial has not yet taken place, she’s already been tried and convicted in the eyes of everyone in Duncarrick. They are certain that she murdered Eleanor Gray, took the dead woman’s child as her own and deceived her dying aunt – the previous owner of the inn – about the child’s origin AND her own wickedness. They all seem to want her hanged – most likely for the wicked wantonness she’s supposedly hidden all along.

If it all looks like a classic case of a ‘witch hunt’, that’s because it is. A fact that is brought to Rutledge’s attention by one of the few locals who is on Fiona’s side. Then again, the constable is in love with her so the locals have dismissed him as ensorcelled by her beauty.

The thing is, there is no proof of any of this tissue paper of conjecture being true. It’s all circumstantial, and some of it is physically impossible, or contradictory, or both. And yet, it’s obvious that Fiona MacDonald is going to be hanged for whatever it is that the locals really resent her for – unless Rutledge learns a truth that no one seems to want him to find.

Except, that is, for Corporal Hamish MacLeod, the voice at Rutledge’s shoulder, inside his head, and the manifestation of Rutledge’s own legacy from the dead of the late war, and his shell shock. Rutledge believes that he owes MacLeod a debt. Whether or not that’s true, he’s certain he owes Fiona MacDonald. Because Rutledge was Hamish’s commanding officer and was the person directly responsible for his death – and for the letter he wrote to Hamish’s next of kin afterwards. To Hamish’s beloved Fiona MacDonald.

Rutledge knows it’s his responsibility to save Fiona if he can. But the only way for him to accomplish that goal is to prize out of the woman a secret that she believes will destroy the little boy she has come to love as her own.

Escape Rating A+: This turned out to be a one-day, very nearly one-sitting read for me. I started at breakfast and just kept going every spare minute for the rest of the day. Which is what I expected and exactly why I chose a book from this series as part of my Blogo-Birthday Celebration and Giveaway. I wanted to pick a book – and a series – that I knew I would enjoy so that I’d feel good about introducing the lucky winner to a book in that series.

I have read the author’s World War I-set Bess Crawford series in its entirety (so far, I’m waiting for the concluding book to miraculously appear), but those books usually come out in the fall, so not conveniently timed for the Celebration. As I’m still catching up with THIS series, and was moved to do so a bit faster after this holiday’s marvelous A Christmas Witness, this seemed like a great series to include here – and this book in it certainly delivered.

What makes Rutledge so fascinating as a character is that he is a man dealing with the horrors of his war – and finding a way to survive in a world that wants to forget the horrors of his service, forget that there was a war or that another is looming on the horizon, and pretend that the things that haunt him are a fault of his own weakness and not an entirely understandable human response to walking through the valley of the shadow of death and feeling that death still clinging to him.

In this relatively early book in the series, after A Test of Wills, Wings of Fire and Search the Dark, the war is still very much with Rutledge – and with everyone around him. That he is haunted by the spirit – or the memory – of Hamish is both the embodiment of that haunting and his cross to bear for seemingly the rest of his life. He’s learning to cope with the relentless voice in his head – and he’s doing it better than most of us would do.

But this case is literally dead Hamish’s legacy to both Rutledge and his beloved Fiona. Hamish can’t save her, but Rutledge can. And knows that he should, just as Hamish once saved him. But the case is convoluted and twisted and very, very bent because Fiona won’t save herself, and won’t reveal the reasons why.

It’s up to Rutledge to investigate things and places and especially people that no one wants to be looked into. Lady Maude Grey does not want the certainty of her daughter’s body. Fiona doesn’t want her child’s true origins exposed. Because the other legacy of the war, at least for those who survived in body, is that the spirit doesn’t always come all the way back home – and that it doesn’t forget the lessons learned about how to survive no matter the cost to everyone else.

I got completely absorbed in Legacy of the Dead. It’s a marvelously compelling, utterly twisted historical mystery that keeps the reader guessing along with Rutledge AND does a fantastic job of invoking its time and place. I’ll be returning to Rutledge and his world with Watchers of Time, the next time I need the catharsis of an absorbing mystery well and righteously solved.

As part of the Blogo-Birthday Celebration, I’d like to share one book from either of Charles Todd’s World War I historical mystery series, either Inspector Ian Rutledge  or Nurse Bess Crawford, with one lucky winner. Just take your shot through the giveaway widget below, and be sure to come back tomorrow for another giveaway!