Charles Todd: A Game of Fear
Through now 24 novels, Charles and Caroline Todd have provided their readers with excellence, pure and simple. The first novel in the Rutledge series, A Test of Wills, is a classic, and the rest of the series, elegiac, carefully plotted, and richly characterized, have all been solid and worthy reads. Sadly, this is the last novel written in collaboration with Caroline Todd, who passed away in 2021. She leaves a huge legacy.
In this novel, set in 1921, Inspector Rutledge has been called in from Scotland Yard to look at a case in Essex. He goes where he’s sent by his higher ups, but he is puzzled to be looking in a case that seems to involve a ghost. No-one is better than the Todds at setting up a disturbing premise that sticks in your mind as you read, wondering what’s going on. Twenty-four books in, I was pretty comfortable waiting to discover the solution.