A False Mirror (Inspector Ian Rutledge Mysteries) - Softcover

Charles Todd

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060786744 ISBN 13: 9780060786748

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2008

Synopsis

Hampton Regis is a small harbour town on the southern coast of England, a place with an ancient history. There, in the year after World War I has ended, a tragedy is in the making - a woman's husband has been attacked and badly injured and the suspect, the man she loved before he left to go to war, has taken the wife and her maid as hostages.

About this title

Synopsis:

Hampton Regis is a small harbour town on the southern coast of England, a place with an ancient history but long since passed over by its larger neighbours. There, in the year after World War I has ended, a tragedy is in the making - a woman's husband has been attacked and badly injured and the suspect, the man she loved before he left to go to war, has taken the wife and her maid as hostages. The desperate man, Stephen, threatens to kill the hostages unless the local police bring in a man he knew in the trenches-Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge.Rutledge, still struggling with his own demons from the war, fears that in stepping into the emotional struggle of these three people, he can't be objective. Their situation in a sense mirrors his own. As a result of Rutledge going off to fight, he too lost the woman he loved to another man. If, as Stephen claims, he didn't try to kill his lover's husband, then who did? And what has happened in this little town that is worth killing for? Once again, Charles Todd has placed the tormented, yet brilliant policeman into a situation that, while it brings back his haunted past, must be solved before a killer strikes again.

From the Back Cover:

Unhealed scars of the Great War still torment Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge, and he carries with him the presence of the soldier he was forced to execute in the midst of battle. A haunted, damaged shell of a man, he has been sent to the small coastal town of Hampton Regis to solve a violent crime and to confront his own tragic past.

An officer who served with Rutledge in the trenches of France before being sent back to England under suspicious circumstances has now been accused of savagely beating the husband of the woman he still loves. The suspect has taken the wife hostage, threatening to kill her and her maid unless Rutledge is put in charge of the investigation. Although the case painfully mirrors Rutledge's own past and the love he lost to another man, he cannot refuse it. When the unconscious brutalized victim vanishes without a trace, it's clear that this peaceful little town hides a vicious murderer . . . and secrets powerful enough to kill for.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0060786744
• ISBN 13: 9780060786748
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 416