Redheaded Reviews: A Test of Wills by Charles Todd

In this first Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery, he has just returned a shell shocked veteran of World War I who hears the voice of one of the men he served with, Hammish, in his head whenever he gets stressed. In an effort to save his sanity he hopes to drown himself in his work and soon finds himself being set up on a case that could ruin his career.

A Colonel in the British Army whose estate is called Mallows, his found with his head blown off by a shotgun in his fields after his horse returns covered in blood. The problem is everyone seemed to like the Colonel. The only man who didn't, Mavers, a malcontent who preaches communism and the oppression of the landowners, has an alibi. He was in the village square all morning yelling to anyone who could hear his rhetoric.

The night before the Colonel's murder, a Captain in the British Air Force, Mark Wilton, who is supposed to marry the Colonel's ward, Miss Lettice Wood, has a heated argument and slams the door on his way out with the Colonel screaming "I'll see you in hell first". The next morning, an hung-over shell shocked veteran witnesses the two arguing with each other in the field. The problem is, the Captain was awarded the Victoria Cross and is a friend of the royal court. Arresting him would cause a lot of problems and would likely end Rutledge's career.

Rutledge worries continuously that his knack for being able to figure out why a person died and therefore leading him to the killer, that he had before the war, is gone. He can't figure out who exactly the Colonel is or who would want to kill him. And the word of a drunk, shell shocked vet, isn't worth much in court.

The only other suspects are Wilton's cousin, Mrs. Davenant, who might have wanted Mark for herself, a local artist, Miss Turrant, whose love affair with a German during the war ended badly perhaps in part to the Colonel, and the mysterious cousins who live in the cottage next to the Mallows estate. One is a bird watcher who saw Milton on the day in question in an area close to where the road to Mallows was, and the other cousin is an extremely shy recluse. Also, there's Royston, the man who runs Mallows, who may a secret he doesn't want coming to light.

None of these suspects seem really plausible and the Inspector feels as though he is clutching at straws. He begins to doubt his sanity and his abilities as a detective, as Hammish babbles in the back of his head, and he tries not to answer him aloud, so that no one my know his secret. This book is fascinating in that it offers a unique view into the mind of former soldier suffering from shell shock, who is trying to overcome it without resorting to suicide, by delving into a murder that could easily end his career. I can't wait to read the next one!

Quotes

He’d learned, in France, to face dying. He could learn, in time, how to face living. It was just getting thought the desolation in between that seemed to be beyond him.

---Charles Todd (A Test of Wills p 6)

…Charles once said that the greatest crime of the war was ruining the French countryside for a

generation. Not the slaughter of armies, but the slaughter of land.

--- Charles Todd (A Test of Wills p 24)

Women…They always ken the cruelest way to torment a man for what’s he done, witting or no.

--- Charles Todd (A Test of Wills p77)

It isn’t actually a question of guilt or innocence, is it? It’s a matter of what the jury believes, once we’ve told them what evidence there is on either side. Give the proper evidence, we could probably convict God. Without it, Lucifer himself would walk free!

--Charles Todd (A Test of Wills p 94-5)

You aren’t afraid until you’ve got something to lose. But when you love someone or something, you’re terrified—there’s so much at stake, then, so much at risk, you see…

--Charles Todd (A Test of Wills p 121)

I don’t hold with Freud’s nonsense about dreams, but I can tell you that nightmares strip the soul.

--- Charles Todd (A Test of Wills p 124)

There are many ways to kill…Cruelty will do very well.

--Charles Todd (A Test of Wills p 172)

He wouldn’t go back to failure. There were other choices. There always were. To a man who feared living more than he feared death.

--Charles Todd (A Test of Wills p 208)

Oh, yes. I’ve learned that life is never what you expect it will be. Just as you come to the fringes of happiness, touching it, feeling it, tasting it—and desperately hoping for the rest of it—it’s jerked away.